'Mongaku Shonin Under The Nachi Waterfall' by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, 1860. This image is also available on:
The Japanese title, Senbu（先負）, is more or less untranslatable into English but relates to the Japanese concept of auspicious and inauspicious days, and means roughly 'Day on which one faces judgement in the morning and narrowly avoids it'. More literally the characters mean 'before' and 'taking responsibility'. This scene portrays an incident in the early life of the legendary Buddhist monk Mongaku Shonin, as he does penance for accidentally killing a woman by sitting under the freezing deluge of Nachi waterfall in winter for twenty-one days. Waterfall cleansing is an ancient Shinto purification ritual adopted into Buddhism as a means of achieving a heightened mental state for prayer and meditation; both traditions see it as a way to expunge sins. Mongaku was at the point of death when he completed the penance, but two of the shrine's attendants (shown in the top-right corner) rescued him, hence the Japanese title - Mongaku began the twenty-first day knowing the penance was about to kill him, but ended the day reprieved and spiritually purified of his crime.
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