Merged: Inside Japanese Zen Temples and Kakunen's Anju Wanderings

[Guest]

Hi Everyone!

Kakunen from Japan.

I take videos at Tenryuji (Kind of my home temple)

I practice at here.

Sharing two video,main hall and Zendo)

I hope this will be good opportunity to know Japanese temple and culture.

I explain at video,but my English is not good.So maybe Jundo add explanation!

Video1

https://youtu.be/ETOhIhgfvH4

Video2

https://youtu.be/9vb-Bxl76Q4

Please enjoy!

Gassho
Sat today
Kakunen


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Bion]

Thank you for this Kakunen!!! Lovely temple and your explanations were perfect!!! I really appreciate your posts, always! ありがとうございました

[emoji1374] Sat Today

[Jundo]

Lovely.

Kannon Bodhisattva = Bodhisattva of Compassion

Monju = Manjushri Bodhisattva, Bodhisattva of Wisdom

Your English is clear, Kakunen.

Well, it is a fairly new building (I will guess 1980s?), but houses many very, very old statues. Lovely.

Thank you, Kakunen.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Heiso]

That was fascinating, thank you Kakunen - and your English was very good.

Gassho,

Heiso

StLah

[Shonin Risa Bear]

Greatly appreciated

gassho
ds sat lah and dokusan today

[Nengyoku]

Greatly appreciated, friend.

Jundo, I have a small question you may or may not have the answer to.
The part early on in the first video where he shows the statues of the ancient masters, there are two on the left which have Kanji drawn on the upper torso.
Is this supposed to represent tattoos of scripture they had or something? Was there a custom for early masters to tattoo scripture?

Gassho,
Nengyoku
Sat

[Jundo]

The part early on in the first video where he shows the statues of the ancient masters, there are two on the left which have Kanji drawn on the upper torso.
Is this supposed to represent tattoos of scripture they had or something? Was there a custom for early masters to tattoo scripture?

I cannot see close enough to read what is written, so we can ask Kakunen (at 1:00 to 1:15 of first video). Maybe a scripture, maybe the name of the artist or Arhat, maybe a dedication to the donor.

Those statues represent 16 of the early Arhats of India, the Buddha's immediate and most famous early disciples (plus Bodhidharma, seated in a big chair, sometimes in groups of 18 or 500, known as Arakan in Japan and Lohan in China). I have looked through several collections, such as this ...

http://rakan.or.jp/en/rakan_gallery/page/6

... and I cannot find anything with similar iconography so as to identify who that is. While tattoos where not forbidden in the early Buddhist Vinaya rules (unless they indicated that someone was a prisoner escaped from jail), I don't believe that would be a tattoo, no. I cannot find a mention of writing on the skin either.

Here are some interesting stories about the Arhats in English, and they are quite wondrous figures. They might fit right into Lord of the Rings.

https://www.photodharma.net/Malaysia/Arhats/Arhats-Storyboard.htm

Here are some other examples:

https://tounji.net/2017/09/29/post_24/

Kakunen, can you read and tell us what it says? (In Japanese is okay, and I will translate).

Gassho, J

STLah

[Nengei]

I find myself wondering whether the "halos" on some of these Arhat figures are a result of later Christian influence, or a part of original lore.

I also wonder whether the figures require any ongoing care (other than maintenance from wear) in the form of offerings, bathing, etc. I am not familiar with such in our Buddhist practice, but in Indian traditions the degree of care for diety or honored-person figures is... extensive.

Thank you for keeping us updated, and for these wonderful videos, Kakunen! I always look forward to your posts.

Gassho,
Nengei
Sat today. LAH.

[Tairin]

Thank you for the tour Kakunen.


Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Jundo]

I find myself wondering whether the "halos" on some of these Arhat figures are a result of later Christian influence, or a part of original lore.

I also wonder whether the figures require any ongoing care (other than maintenance from wear) in the form of offerings, bathing, etc. I am not familiar with such in our Buddhist practice, but in Indian traditions the degree of care for diety or honored-person figures is... extensive.

Thank you for keeping us updated, and for these wonderful videos, Kakunen! I always look forward to your posts.

The Halo is not, in my understanding, found in the earliest Buddhist iconography (which, by the way, did not depict the physical form of the Buddha at all, but only an empty space, an empty seat, a tree, the Dharma Wheel or footprints to represent the Buddha). Such influences developed on the Silk Road, which is why there is much Greek influence in traditional Buddhist art as far away as Japan and Korea. More about that here:

https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?17804-How-the-Buddha-Got-His-Face&p=262370&viewfull=1#post262370

This fellow explains:

So how did the halo's influence spread across the world and between religions? The initial movement of this piece of religious iconography is outwards east and west from its birthplace in Iran, in the hands of some of the past's most powerful empires.

In the First Century AD, the Indo-Scythians (nomads from Iran) and the Kushans (from Bactria, Afghanistan) invaded the regions to their southeast, the territories now covered by modern-day Pakistan, Afghanistan and northern India. Both empires, which were steeped in ancient Iranian cultural history, brought coinage with them that represented Mithra with a halo. This youthful and attractive god with his divine radiance had an obvious appeal to a growing number of people around the Hindu Kush. So much so that the iconography of Buddha – even from the earliest visual representations of him, such as the Bimaran reliquary (which might date from the late First Century AD), show him with a Mithraic halo. ... Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism peacefully coexisted in India in the first millennium AD, and the three religions shared ideas and artistic iconography, including haloes. The earliest sculpted representations of haloes in Indian religious art come from the two great centres of art production, Gandhara (on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan) and Mathura (90 miles south of Delhi).

... In late antiquity and the Middle Ages, Gandhara stood at the centre of an immense network of trading routes that stretched to China in the east and the Mediterranean in the west. Buddhist monasteries appeared along the key junctures of the trade highways to serve as religious versions of caravanserais. They offered a place for merchants to rest, pray and recuperate, and became the springboards from which Buddhism spread overland to China, where artists replicated the religion's iconography. By the 500s AD, haloes were appearing in art in Korea and Japan, indicating the arrival of Buddhism in these regions too.
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/...ound-the-world

Another Asian art blog add:

According to ancient Greek history, a halo was used to describe a circle of lights around the head of heroes of ancient Greece. In ancient Greece, many spiritual characters were depicted with a halo such as Perseus, Lyssa (figure of madness), Sphinx (Sea demon), Thetis (the sea-nymph) and the Sun God Helios. Most of the Greek Gods were not depicted with a halo. The only Greek gods who were depicted with a halo were Helios, Goddess of Dawn (Eos) and Eos’s son Eosphorous.
Halo was quite popular in ancient art of Rome. In Late 2nd Century AD, Apollo Helios was depicted with a halo in the ancient city of Rome, Thysdrus. According to Roman history, Halo first appeared in the culture of Hellenistic Rome and Greece. Halo was particularly popular in mosaic, an art of creating images. Another great mosaic piece was the depiction of Alexander the Great with a light of Halo around his head. ...

... The halo as well as aureola is quite popular in Indian art as well as Chinese art. A halo is often used to depict Buddhist iconography. The ancient depictions of Lord Buddha often show Gautama Buddha with a halo. But some Buddhist texts mentioned that Lord Buddha never had a halo around his head. These texts say that Lord Buddha emitted rays of light (of different color like blue, yellow, red and white) during the time of nirvana and Parinirvana. Halo was also in practice in ancient Japanese, Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism. The Haloes were mostly used to depict Amitabha Buddha and others in Buddhist art of Japanese and Chinese Buddhism. Various Buddhist deities in Tibetan Buddhism such as Padmasambhava and Milarepa are also shown with Haloes around their head. The color of Haloes has their own meaning like the orange halo represented Buddhist monks, green colored halo represented circle of light around Lord Buddha head and other colors represented the elevated beings in Buddhism. Theravada Buddhism and Jainism neglected the use of Halo in their art for many centuries but later adopted the use of Halo.
The earliest appearance of the halo in Asian art occurred in early 1st century AD. The kings and rulers of ancient Kushan Empire were the earliest to use Halo in their coins and in their art. It is said that the use of nimbus may have originated from Kushan Empire in Central Asia and later the use of Halo became quite popular in many religions of Asia.
https://www.buddha-heads.com/buddha-...tues/the-halo/

The statues such as Kakunen shows are old and wooden, with fragile surfaces and paint, so they cannot be bathed. I assume that they are carefully dusted from time to time. Certainly, offerings are made daily as part of the temple schedule, so that you can see in the video (1:00 mark) the incense burner, tea cup, flowers and candle holders in front of the 16 Arhat statues.

We have one Arhat in our Zendo in Tsukuba, by the way (or, I suspect is an Arhat), quite large (about 3 ft/100cm tall). I also have struggled to identify specifically which of the Arhats he is. He holds a fly-swatter and shouts or laughs at the sky, dressed as a Zen Master ...

zendo arhat.JPG

Gassho, J

STLah

[Kakunen]

I cannot see close enough to read what is written, so we can ask Kakunen (at 1:00 to 1:15 of first video). Maybe a scripture, maybe the name of the artist or Arhat, maybe a dedication to the donor.

Those statues represent 16 of the early Arhats of India, the Buddhas immediate and most famous early disciples (plus Bodhidharma, seated in a big chair, sometimes in groups of 18 or 500, known as Arakan in Japan and Lohan in China). I have looked through several collections, such as this ...

http://rakan.or.jp/en/rakan_gallery/page/6

... and I cannot find anything with similar iconography so as to identify who that is. While tattoos where not forbidden in the early Buddhist Vinaya rules (unless they indicated that someone was a prisoner escaped from jail), I don't believe that would be a tattoo, no. I cannot find a mention of writing on the skin either.

Here are some interesting stories about the Arhats in English, and they are quite wondrous figures. They might fit right into Lord of the Rings.

https://www.photodharma.net/Malaysia/Arhats/Arhats-Storyboard.htm

Here are some other examples:

https://tounji.net/2017/09/29/post_24/

Kakunen, can you read and tell us what it says? (In Japanese is okay, and I will translate).

Gassho, J

STLah

Jundo

I asked to head monk.

This is name of donor and part of chant,he said.But he doesn't know about meaning of chant,
because these are very old.

Gassho
sat today
Kakunen

[Anchi]

[Jundo]

Jundo

I asked to head monk.

This is name of donor and part of chant,he said.But he doesn't know about meaning of chant,
because these are very old.

Gassho
sat today
Kakunen

[Naiko]

Thank you, Kakunen, for this lovely tour.
Gassho,
Naiko
st

[Tosei]

Very nice, Kakunen. Many thanks for such a clear and heartfelt exposition.

Gassho.

stlah