E-toki Buddhist Picture Telling - History

History

The earliest examples of e-toki are of a monk pointing to a picture in a picture hall and explaining the story of either Shakamuni (the historical buddha) or another important Buddhist monk, most notably Prince Shotoku who is often attributed with bringing Buddhism to Japan from China, or in the case of secular emaki, exposing the hidden Buddhist message behind the images. The earliest examples of etoki where only performed to a small group of the ruling class, and only upon special request.

These early performances were non-accompanied, and a solo monk would use a pointer with a soft cotton tip to tap the paintings in areas that exemplified the point to be made ( the cotton tip was to reduce the wear on the scrolls, many emaki show the wear of these performances despite this precaution with areas of the paint flaked off in vital image areas).

The practice started to move out of picture halls and become more of a public performance around the 11th Century. At this time music began to accompany the picture telling, a blind monk would play the biwa as a sighted monk would tell the story and point to the picture. Music would be composed for specific stories, and the e-toki timed to correlate dramatic moments within the story to the music. Monks would often perform e-toki in exchange for gifts of food or money, and traveling e-toki performing monks would set up and preach on bridges or roadsides for any audience.