Nuns from the few remaining Imperial Buddhist Convents of Japan visited Columbia University on November 21, 1998 to conduct a rare Buddhist ceremony in St. Paul's Chapel in memory of their spiritual founder, Zen Abbess Mugai Nyodai, who died 700 years ago in November, 1298. The 700th Anniversary Memorial rituals had never before been performed outside Japan, and this was the first visit of Imperial Buddhist nuns to the United States.

Highlights of the memorial service included not only rarely seen rituals by nuns from Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, and Tokyo, but also a special incense burning and poetic invocation by Chief Abbott of Tofukuji monastery Fukushima Keido, as well as musical offerings that included a world premier, "Mind Mirror: Nyodai's Dream" for shakuhachi, pipa, and bass koto in honor of Abbess Mugai Nyodai, composed for the occasion by Ms. Yuriko Hase Kojima.

Songs composed by one of Europe's most illustrious medieval Catholic nuns, Hildegard von Bingen, crossed cultures and were offered to Abbess Mugai Nyodai by members of Columbia's Collegium Musicum.

The entire ceremony took place in front of a Buddhist altar which centered around an exact replica of the thirteenth-century chinso portrait statue of Abbess Mugai Nyodai. The replica, the original of which is designated an "Important Cultural Treasure" and enshrined in a Kyoto convent, was lent to the memorial service by its owner, the Kanazawa Bunko Museum. More than 200 guests from across the world watched the unprecedented ceremony and offered incense at the altar in honor of Abbess Mugai.

Following the memorial service, the Buddhist clergy and special memorial service guests were invited to join a traditional tea ceremony provided by the Urasenke Chanoyu Center in the Rotunda Gallery of Low Memorial Library.
 

Please see the  Memorial Service Program for an outline of the two-hour ceremony.

You may also read a review of the ceremony by The New York Times or The Yomiuri Shinbun.

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