One Thousand and One Buddhas
Sanjusangen-do is a plain wooden hall, 13 metres by 64 metres. It has unremarkable, plain white screens in the place of windows, and from the outside, aside from its sheer length, looks rather dull. It's name alludes to 'the hall with 33 spaces between the columns'. Step inside and it is easy to understand why so many people crowd here.One thousand and one Kannon statues crowd around the seated figure of Senju Kannon. Sanjusangen-do is in fact the only thousand-Kannon hall left in existence and remains an ancient marvel. Rebuilt in 1266, the hall has survived since then, its golden army silently staring out into space. Legend has it that all the busshi (sculptors of Buddhist art) working in Japan at the time were commissioned to create the statues inside the hall.
I felt as if I had stepped into a Harryhausen film, ready for each one of the arms to start moving, each rank to step out wielding weapons, their clunky stop-motion bodies jittering forward.
Raijin, the god of thunder, is perhaps the most well known of all the statues in the call. He carries circular drums on his back and drumsticks in each hand, looking down at the earth and ready to make his thunder.
