What a Friend We Have in Jizōs 36

                    ‘And there is a Japanese idol at Kamakura.’
                        Rudyard Kipling, Buddha at Kamakura (1892)

The kites rode the thermals above our own flight path, back down to the road that took us through a small neighborhood of shops. A walk that took ten minutes brought us to a destination that was timeless.
The Kōtokuin Temple didn’t look like a Buddhist temple. First of all, there was no graveyard. Second, there was no temple. Robyn and I arrived at a ceremonial fountain, gurgling its invitation to pilgrims. Come purify your body and heart before entering. We followed the ritual. Pick up the long-handled dipper with the right hand, and pour water over the left.  Scoop another cupful and cleanse the right. Pour a third into the left, and lift to your mouth, swish and swirl and spit out to the rocks, to cleanse the heart.  Then, hold the dipper straight up, letting the water course down the handle to repurify it.
Sanctified, we entered the main plaza, more like a park, with a statue of God in the center.
“Whew.” Robyn whistled, letting it out slow. Framed in branches of pink cherry blossoms, against the green mountain backdrop, it was that magnificent.
“Daibutsu.” I said. ‘The Great Buddha of Kamakura.” Over a hundred metric tons of thirteenth century cast bronze covered in verdigris, 44 feet high and nearly as wide, the sacred colossus sat in his lotus position, meditating, hands cupped in his lap, tolerant, elegant, and strong, content that everyone was taken care of. A few souls approached from the front with bowed heads, and others prostrated themselves and prayed. The little sins of little folk.

                                 ‘O ye who tread the Narrow Way 
                                  By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day, 
                                  Be gentle when ‘the heathen’ pray 
                                  To Buddha at Kamakura!’
                                  Rudyard Kipling, Buddha at Kamakura (1892) 

“Its the second tallest bronze Buddha statue in Japan.” I said. “Seven-tenths the size of the Great Buddha in Nara's Todaiji Temple.”
“We’re going there.” Robyn said.
“We are.” I said. “But this Buddha, despite being smaller than Todaji, has better balance, power, intelligence, dignity, and higher artistic value.” 
“And unlike the Todaji Buddha.” Robyn said. “This one isn’t inside a large wooden temple.”
“True.” I said. “This one was also built totally with funds donated by devotees, and has his original hands and head. We can follow the same face over hundreds of years.”

                                 ‘The grey-robed, gay-sashed butterflies 
                                  That flit beneath the Master’s eyes. 
                                  He is beyond the Mysteries 
                                  But loves them at Kamakura.’
                                  Rudyard Kipling, Buddha at Kamakura (1892) 

                                  ‘From the great bronze
                                   Buddha's nostrils...
                                   morning mist’
                                           Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828)

The Great Buddha Todaiji statue in Nara was the inspiration for his younger cousin. Yoritomo’s participation in its inauguration in 1195, kindled his desire to build a matching one in Kamakura. But Yoritomo died in 1199, and another forty years would pass before his idea was revived. It came in the form of one of his court ladies, Inada no Tsubone, who in
March 1238 obtained approval from Yoritomo’s widow Masako to go ahead with the project. Inada enlisted a Jodo sect mendicant priest named Joko, to travel across the country and solicit donations. The Kamakura Shogunate was controlled by Hōjō regents, and would not give financial aid because of their patronage of Zen temples, whereas the statue Yoritomo had wanted built was that of Amida. The site selected for its construction was to reflect the belief that the Lord of Pure Land Paradise dwelled in the far west.