KYOTO - Sanjusangen-do Temple

Sanjūsangen-dō (三十三間堂, Temple of thirty-three bays) is a Buddhist temple founded in 1164 by the famous samurai and politician Taira no Kiyomori in 1164 for the cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa. Sanjūsangen-dō is most famous for its massively long hondō (main hall) dating from 1266 (Kamakura period) and designated a National Treasure of Japan, and the collection of sculptures it houses, including 1001 standing Thousand-armed Kannon, 28 standing attendants, a statue of Fūjin and a statue of Raijin, and the principal image of the temple, a big seated statue of Thousand-armed Kannon, all of them designated National Treasures in the category of sculptures, most of them dating to the Heian to Kamakura periods. The temple complex originally included several buildings other than the hondō (main hall) but they were completely destroyed in 1249 by a fire that broke out in the city. The Emperor Go-Saga ordered the reconstruction of the hondō, which began in 1251. The building was completed in 1266 and survives to the present day. From the original 1000 standing Thousand-armed Kannon dating from the temple's construction in the late Heian period, only 124 were saved from the fire. The Emperor also ordered 876 new Kannon statues to replace the lost ones. These were created by three groups of Buddhist sculptors during the course of 16 years.The main deity of the temple is Sahasrabhuja-arya-avalokiteśvara or the Thousand Armed Kannon. The statue of the main deity was created by the Kamakura sculptor Tankei and is a National Treasure of Japan. The statues are made of Japanese cypress clad in gold leaf. The temple is 120 - meter long. Around the 1000 Kannon statues stand 28 statues of guardian deities. There are also two famous statues of Fūjin and Raijin.
Source Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanj%C5...

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