Seirei by Shin Takamatsu

I've posted photos of the works of Shimane born architect Shin Takamatsu quite a few times. I do like his work and there are a lot of them in my neighborhood, but I finally made a trip to the sacred  mountain of  Nose Myoken San to see a work that I have wanted to see for ages.

On top of the mountain is a Nichiren temple to Myoken, the Pole Star, and Takamatsu was asked to design a new worship hall which is named Seirei.

Its floorplan is in the shape of a star, and the materials are glass, metal, and wood. The wood was taken from trees on the mountaintop site.

It is open just one day a month, but I got permission to go inside so I will post photos of that next.....

Miyazaki Minka-en

In the grounds around Miyazaki Jingu Shrine is the Prefectural Museum of Natute & History, and in its grounds is the Minka-en, an open air museum of traditional farmouses.

The farmhouses have been dismantled from their original sites around the region and reassembled here. All of them are now thatched, and represent different styles and relative wealth.

They can all be entered and some artifacts are inside. best of all the museum of farmhouses is free to enter.

More details and more photos can be seen in a longer piece I wrote.....

Shikoku Pilgrimage Temple 36 Shoryuji

Shoryuji is one of the temples that was most probably founded by Kobo Daishi. He named it after one of the temples he studied at when he was in China.

It's fairly remote and very pleasant temple, with two pagodas. According to the legend, when Kobo Daishi was in China he threw a vajra and it landed here.

The honzon, claimed to be carved by Kobo Daishi, is a Fudo Myo, and there are several Fudo Myo statues around the grounds.

Pilgrims used to have to take a ferry across the narrow but very long inlet, but now a bridge has been built.

The Weird & Wonderful Folk Statues of Takanabe Daishi

On a hill overlooking Takanabe on the Miyazaki coast are a strange collection of large and small statues. Some of them are Buddhist deities, and some are Kami.

They were the creation of a local man who was concerned about the spirits of the deceased in a series on ancient burial mounds nearby. He employed a sculptor to carve a set of statues, and then after having watched him at work he set about creating his own unique statues and devoted the rest of his life to it.

They are quite primitive and unsophisticated in their execution, but therein lies their charm. At times looking like Native American totem poles, at other like the Easter Island statues, but most of all they are child-like.

For more photos and a lot more information please check out this longer article I wrote

Drowned Buddhas

Tadaji, an old temple in the hills outside Hamada has a rather strange collection of wooden statues in their main hall.

They were fished out of the sea on the coast down below the temple, and had obviously spent some time in the water. More than likely they had been thrown into the sea, or a river, during the Haibutsu Kishaku, the "destroy Buddhism" campaign in the late 19th Century.

The campaign was officially rescinded, and many areas did not really go along with it, but some places went for it with a vengeance. The Oki Islands, for instance, destroyed every single Buddhist temple.

Experts say some of these statues probably date from the Kamakura Period and so are quite old. The current along the coast comes from the west so these statues were put in the water further west, down in Yamaguchi or somewhere near there......

Fudo Myo at Takanabe Daishi

On the 21st day of my walk along the KyushuPilgrimage I started out near Takanabe, Miyazaki at a place I had been really been looking forward to visiting.

Takanabe Daishi is a big collection of mostly unusual statues on a hilltop overlooking the town. The statues include some kami and many Buddhas and other Buddhist deities, and included were quite a few of Fudo Myo.

Many of the statues were carved by a fairly skilled sculptor, but the most interesting ones were done by the local man who had hired the sculptor and they really are quite fascinating and unusual.

I will post more photos of the other kami and Buddhas later, but you can read more details in the article I wrote for Japanvisitor here. For now here are just ones that include Fudo Myo.

Takada Kokuzo-do

The Sasaguri Pilgrimage, like the Kyushu Pilgrimage, does not have a lot of big, grand temples. It does have a lot of interesting and surprising one though. Most of the "temples" are too small to have a resident priest, and are more what could be described as "chapels. One thing they do all have though is statuary, especially Fudo Myo.

Temple 21, but the second to visit if you start at Sasaguri Sation, is just such a temple. With 88 temples within only 50k of walking, the distance between temples is often measured in meters rather than kilometers. Takada Kokuzo-do was onky 5 minutes from the previous temple and less than a minute to the next.

There was a Jizo in a little hut, and a couple of Fudo Myo's in the grounds. The Honzon is Kokuzo Bosatsu, not one of the more well-known Bodhisattvas.

It is however the deity that Kobo Daishi prayed to while training as a young man at Mount Tairyuji and Cape Muroto. In the small temple a statue of Kobo Daishi flanks the honzon

Kyushu Pilgrimage Temple 36 Kansenji

There are many different reasons for doing a pilgrimage. Among my reasons, one is to explore, discover, & learn. On the 108 temple Kyushu Pilgrimage I walked there was not a lot of famous temples like on the Shikoku Pilgrimage or the Saigoku Pilgrimage.

There were also lots of surprises, like Gyoshinji, the temple I had visited a few hours earlier, but there were also lots of run-of-the-mill, small temples with no great architecture or gardens, like Kansenji.

It is rare to find somewhere that does not have something interesting for me to learn. Kansenji had quite a few statues, but one, in particular, struck me. It was of Kobo Daishi, the focus of this and many other pilgrimages in Japan, unusually holding a baby.

This is a Koyasu Daishi and is related to a story from the 61st temple of the Shikoku Pilgrimage where Kobo Daishi met a pregnant woman having a difficult and painful birth. He prayed for her and the result was a successful birth, so this temple is a popular place for expectant mothers to visit.

Return to Round Windows

For some reason, posts of round windows have always been popular, and as all of my old blog posts are now missing photos because I left a particular photo hosting site I thought I would post some recent photos.

The first one is from the former residence of Japans 26th prime Minister Tanaka Giichi, in Hagi Yamaguchi. The second is from Shoji-ji Temple in the Oharano district of Kyoto.

This third one is from the Jippotei, a collection of traditional buildings in YamaguchiCity.

The last 2 are from the former Yoshimatsu Residence in Kushima, Kagoshima.

More Statues at Gyoshinji

Gyoshinji, the 35th temple on the Kyushu Pilgrimage had a large collection of statues lining the forest path that leads to a waterfall used for ascetic training. Reclining Buddhas are not very common in Japan.

I didn't realize until later that the 88 statues represented the honzons of the 88 main temples on the pilgrimage. If I had known I would have paid more attention.

I am getting better at recognizes the different buddhas, bodhisattvas, deities and characters that one finds statues of, but there are so many of them and each may have many variations.

This final one is a complete mystery to me as the hairstyle is ancient Japanese and the figure looks female..... anyone have any ideas?