08/13/2022
In 1956, a metal drum containing nearly two thousand stones was unearthed at the former Heart Mountain concentration camp's cemetery. The meaning and purpose of these stones remained a complete mystery until 2001 when a team of scholars examining the stones realized that some of the characters written on them could be combined to form Buddhist terms. Could they be part of a sutra or sacred Buddhist text? Using computational analysis, the research group found the first six volumes of the Lotus Sutra perfectly matched what were known as the "Heart Mountain Mystery Stones."
During the wartime period, it was made clear to the Japanese American community that goods made in Japan or featuring Japanese script could potentially be used to prove their disloyalty. Many families burned or buried such items in the weeks and months leading up to incarceration. When they arrived at the so-called Assembly Centers, they discovered that their fears had not been unfounded; anything written in Japanese, including collections of poetry and Buddhist sutras, were confiscated by the US Army as contraband.
The fact that the sutra stones were very nearly lost to time and history is itself a lesson. Confronted by hostility, ignorance, and indifference, the Heart Mountain Sutra Stones nevertheless survived, testament to the persistence and resilience of faith in the camps.
You can see the Heart Mountain Sutra Stones on view in the exhibition, "Sutra and Bible: Faith and the Japanese American World War II Incarceration" at JANM!
