The bronze Buddha
In the open air.
John Gillespie — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Andrea Schaffer from Sydney, Australia — CC BY 2.0 · baggio4ever — CC BY 3.0 · Jennie Kondo (Jennie Valdivieso Kondo - Grialte) — CC BY-SA 3.0 · TAKA@P.P.R.S — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wei-Te Wong from Taipei City, Taiwan, Republic of China — CC BY-SA 2.0 · P. Hughes — CC BY-SA 4.0
A huge open-air bronze statue of Amitābha Buddha at the Buddhist temple of Kōtoku-in in Kamakura, one of Japan's best-known icons, a National Treasure and one of the sites in Kamakura's World Heritage proposal. With its base the statue stands 13.35 metres tall and weighs about 93 tonnes, and temple records date it to around 1252, in the Kamakura period that gave it its name. It once sat inside a hall, until a tsunami washed the last one away in 1498; it has stood in the open air ever since, weathered to a blue-green by time. The statue is hollow, and visitors can step inside to see how it was cast. A notice at the entrance to the grounds asks visitors of every creed to enter with reverence, and trees and small gardens frame the courtyard. Tickets are about 300 yen, plus 50 yen to go inside the statue, and it opens 8:00-17:30 from April to September and to 17:00 from October to March, per visitor guides. It is a few minutes from Hase Station and close to Hasedera.
In the open air.
A hollow you can enter.
Weathered by centuries.
Hase, Kamakura
Yes, the statue is hollow and can be entered for about 50 yen on top of the roughly 300-yen temple ticket, per visitor guides.
