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Sanjiusangen-do Temple, Kyoto
Unknown, 1912, Photograph, Postcard
Item
of 66
Sanjiusangen-do Temple, Kyoto
Sanjiusangen-do Temple, Kyoto
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Location
Category
Library Item
Item no
16702
Title
Sanjiusangen-do Temple, Kyoto
Artist / maker
Unknown
Date
1912
Size
9.0 x 14.0 cm
Type
Photograph
;
Postcard
Location
Art and Design Library
Sanjusangendo is a Buddhist temple in Kyoto. It contains 1001 life-sized 'Thousand-armed Kannon' (Kannon is a bodhisattva, an enlightened being who remains in the world to save others). Each statue has a main head as well as eleven small heads above, and two normally placed arms as well as forty arms additional arms. Each arm can save 25 different kinds of worlds (40 × 25 = 1000), thus, they are called 'Thousand-armed Kannon'. The statues are placed so that people can see all of them easily when they look up. According to the tradition, people can find the face they wish to see on the Kannon. The temple was built in 1164 by the order of Emperor Go-Shirakawa but having burned down in 1249, it was rebuilt in 1266. 124 are thought to be original, dating from 1164. Another 800 statues are believed to have been re-made around the 13th century. These statues bring a mysterious atmosphere to the hall and many people from both Japan and abroad experience the sublime world of Buddhism by being close to them.
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Asia
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Japan
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Religious gods and goddesses
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Buddhas
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