The 500 Rakan at Unpenji Temple

 

A combination of snow and the low, golden sunlight made these pics of Rakan a little special.

Unpenji Temple straddles the border of Tokushima and Kagawa Prefectures on Shikoku.

Sitting atop Mount Unpenji, it is temple 66 of the famous 88 temple pilgrimage of Shikoku.

At 900 meters altitude, it is the highest of all the 88 temples.

The rakan statues are life-size, and spread over quite a wide area. I do not know for sure if they have the full 500.

I wish I had spent more time exploring and photographing them, but I was bushed from the climb.

The previous temple on the pilgrimage was the 14th Bangai temple Tsubaki-do, down at the base of the mountain.

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500 Rakan at Buttsuji Temple

 

The statues of the 500 Rakan at Buttsuji Temple are all made of stone and seem to be fairly recent in origin.

Not sure how many there are, certainly not close to 500, but there is space for more to be added and a couple seem to be almost new.

What I had not seen before is that each figure was named.

Also, to the left of the name was the name of the person who had donated the statue....

Nothing more to add, so please peruse the photos....

The previous post was on the gardens here at Buttsuji.....

Next I will look at the temple itself......

500 Rakan of Mount Shirataki

 

The top of 226-meter-high Mount Shirataki on Innoshima Island in the Inland Sea between Hiroshima and Shikoku is covered with 700 Buddhist statues.

500 of them are of the rakan, or arhats, said to be disciples of the historical Buddha.

With its rocky outcroppings, Mount Shirataki is believed to have been a site favored by Yamabushi, the shugendo ascetics who practised their austerities in the mountains.

Later, the Murakami Clan established a Kannon Hall on the mountaintop and is used it as a lookout over the surrounding waters.

The rakan, however, along with most of the other statues, were put here in the early 19th century.

A man named Hashiwabara Denroku founded a new religion based on elements of Buddhism, Shinto, Confucianism, and Christianity.

Betwen 1827 and 1830 he and a discile together with stonemasons from Onomichi carved 500 rakan statues.

The vast majority were not complete statues, rather relief carvings.

They were also fairly crude and lacking the refinement of many rakan.

Therefore the idea that you will be able to recognize the face of someone you know within the 500 figures is a little harder to realize.

There are about 200 other statues on the mountaintop and I will cover them in the next post, and also a little more detail on the unusual cult and its founder.

The previous post was on the 360 degree views from the viewpoint above the statuary.

Some posts on 500 rakan at other sites include Sennyoji Temple in Kyushu, and at RakanjiTemple at Iwami Ginzan.