Daibutsu Kyoto

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Daibutsu in Kyoto 京都の大仏様

. daibutsu 大仏 Big Buddha statues .
- Introduction -
The best known are in Nara and Kamakura.

There have been four BIG BUDDHA statues build in Kyoto in the course of history, but all of them are now lost.


京都大仏御殿盛衰記 - 村山修一



（『都名所図絵』より、赤丸内に大仏の顔が見える）
Miyako Meisho Zue : The face of the Daibutsu can be seen in the red circle.
Now there is a public park : 大仏殿跡緑地公園

- reference source : shihobe505/archives -


. Hookooji, Hōkō-ji 方広寺 Hoko-Ji .

Toyotomi Hideyoshi 豊臣秀吉 ordered its construction to appease the souls of the Tensho earthquake victims, January 18, 1586, with a magnitude of M 7.8.
He had a sculptor from China make a huge wooden statue.　
It was then covered with clay and laquer and finally gold foil.

Hideyoshi was determined that the capital city should have a Daibutsu temple to surpass that of Nara.
He is reputed to have claimed at the outset that he would complete construction in half the time it took Emperor Shōmu to complete the Great Buddha of Nara.



The hall and the statue was destroyed by the Bunroku earthquake before it was finished in August 14,1596.
Two years later, Hideyoshi died.

His son Toyotomi Hideyori 豊臣秀頼 re-built the temple and statue, this time to be cast in bronze to make it last.
But it was again destroyed by fire in 1602.
The next reconstruction was finished in 1612.
That was when the huge bronze bell was cast.
- - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !



　Construction of the Great Buddha by Hideyoshi
秀吉の大仏造立 - 河内将芳 Kawauchi Masayoshi

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- quote
The 24-meter-high Kyoto Daibutsu (no longer extant) of Hōkōji Temple 方広寺 was built during the reign of Toyotomi Hideyoshi 豊臣秀吉 (1536-1598).
Toyotomi founded this Tendai-sect temple and ordered the creation of its giant monument to honor the spirit of his dead mother and his ancestors. After his own death it became the Toyotomi mortuary temple. Construction of the giant statue reportedly took only three years (as compared to 20 years for the Nara Daibutsu).
The wood image was made by noted sculpture Kōshō 康正 (1534-1621), the head of the Shichijō Bussho 七条仏所 (Seventh Avenue Atelier), a major sculpting workshop of the Keiha school located in Kyoto. However, the statue was destroyed by an earthquake soon after its completion in 1596.
Another statue was soon commissioned, this time in bronze, but it was destroyed in an accidental fire during the casting process in 1602.
A third effigy was commissioned between 1609 and 1616, but it was ruined in another natural disaster in 1622.
A fourth statue, this time made of wood, was created in 1664 by the Buddhist sculpture Genshin 玄信 (active mid-17th century, part of Kōshō’s lineage). It was destroyed by lightning in 1789.


Tokyo National Museum

All that remains of this once spectacular landmark is a small wooden maquette (hinagata 雛形) attributed to Genshin.
Note:
Tokyo National Museum attributes the maquette to sculptor Fujimura Chūen 藤村忠円, a student of Genshin. But research by Chō Yōichi (published in TNM’s own journal, #554, June 1998) explains why Genshin is the likely creator.


Mode, Attributed to Genshin 玄信.

--- Says scholar Beatrice M. Bodart-Bailey
in A Song for the Shogun: Engelbert Kaempfer and 17th-c. Japan:
“The only detailed pictorial record of the Kyoto Daibutsu is from the drawings of the German physician Engelbert Kaempfer (1651-1712), who stayed in Japan from 1690 to 1692. In his writings, he noted the particulars, from the ’long bovine ears’ and the ’frizzy hair’ to the fact that there would be space enough for three Japanese mats on its outstretched palm. He measured out the distances for a more detailed record, and noted that the width between the shoulders was equivalent to fifteen paces.”
(Site Editor: The effigy he witnessed must have been the statue built in 1664.)

--- Says scholar Jens Hvass in 1999:
..... The Daibutsu at Tōdai-ji in Nara in 752.
..... The Daibutsu in Kamakura in 1252.
The third big Buddha figure was erected in Kyoto in the late 16th century by the big upstart in Japanese history, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-98). It was even bigger than its two predecessors were, and by that time in Japanese history, legitimization through architectural manifestations seems to have become an unquestionable necessity of power positions.”
- source : Mark Schumacher



Sketch of Hōkōji Daibutsu by Kaempfer - wikipedia -

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- quote -
京都 ～まぼろし大仏の旅～
東福寺
・京都の町の南東、鴨川のほとりにある正面橋。大仏様の真正面にあったことから名づけられたという。
The bridge Shomen-bashi 正面橋 "Front Bridge" was in the front of the Daibutsu Temple.

・橋の先にある方広寺は４００年ほど前に創建された由緒あるお寺。戦国の頃の文化財も数多く残されている。
・明治時代に撮影した写真に大仏殿が写っている。高さ約１０ｍ、江戸時代の終わり頃に木で造られた。胸から上だけだったが、親しみのあるお顔。
・江戸時代の京都を描いた絵図にも大仏様が載っている。大仏殿を造るため、木材を川から引き上げている。京都の大仏はたくさんの町の人たちの力で造られたが、４代目の大仏だという。
..... more
- reference source : NHK Historia September 2016 -

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Postal stamp : Daibutsu Mae
京都大仏前郵便局　風景印
- reference source : humi.sakura.ne.jp/paco -
方広寺の大釣鐘 Hoko-Ji and the Big Bell


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