The Beauties of Kenchoji

Long the top-ranked Zen temple in Kamakura, Kenchoji continues to impress me every time we visit. This time we also were privileged to see a special exhibit of a rare starving Buddha statue. I am still looking into whether this piece is owned by Kenchoji and is merely being displayed because it's spring (many temples "air out" their collections of national treasures once or twice a year in order to keep dust from settling and so they can charge you to see what they've got) or because it is possibly on loan from somewhere. In any case, starving Buddha statues are rare and this is the first time I've seen one in the flesh, so-to-speak, outside of a textbook.






I'm guessing by the presence of the 5 colored curtains hanging around the hall that this is a pretty important cultural property.

Also worthy of note is the marvelous dragon painting on the ceiling. In Japanese mythology, dragons were the guardians of the sky. Being sky creatures, they were also water-deities, and therefore it was thought that a dragon would protect the buildings by warding off fire.

Here you can see the stylized clouds around the outside of the painting.

While we're at it, how about I throw in a picture of common items found in temples. The big bronze bowl is a bell, and so is the little one that's on the desk in front of it, and so is the interestingly carved wooden mokugyo on the pillow to the right. I had the chance to sound one of the big bells off one time. The sound lasted for well over a minute.


Finally, a shot of a garden.