Day 8 of LL- The Birth of a Japanese Temple🌸

When I say the word temple, what comes to mind? Perhaps an image of a spiritual structure would float up in your mind and pictures of people kneeling down would be seen. However, that’s not the case for the temple in Kyoto, Japan. It is incredibly unusual how it is often crowded with people, noisy with children’s voices, and busy from selling amulets and fortunes. Despite this difference, it still became one of Japan’s most famous landmark. This oddly different temple is the Kiyomizu-Dera Temple.🌸

Temples usually have various stories behind it on how

everything started, and one of the legend about Kiyomizu-Dera said it started in the late eighth century CE with the dream, Engine, a Japanese monk of the Hosso sect of Buddhism. The dream was about a golden river flowing down Mount Otowa right on top of Kyoto. Curious about his dream, Enchin visited the mountains and to his surprise, encountered an elder there. ⾦✨(gold)

That old man was named Gyoei and he stated that he had spent two hundred years there, constantly praying to the Buddhist deity, Kannon. At last, Gyoei asked Enchin for a favor. He wanted Enchin to replace him and so he can leave for a pilgrimage. He promised to come back, and out of nowhere, he said that the piece 

Some good wood 😁

of wood he had been sitting on was good wood, so it’s perfect for carving the face of Kannon if he wanted to. Soon after that was said, Gyoei left, and of course, he never returned.

As time went by, Enchin realized that the old man would never return. Therefore he knew he would have to search for him instead. During his journey, he discovered Gyoei’s shoes at the tip of a mountain. That was when he came to realization. According to Buddhism, it meant Gyoei was a disguise of Kannon and the reason why Enchin could not find him was because he went back to where he belonged. That place was heaven.

Everything became clear, and he went back to the mountain to carve the image of Kannon. However, the most unfortunate event happened. He could not remember the image of the deity, but he didn’t give up. He tried to carve as accurate as possible for twenty years. The dedication was real. To be honest, I might just have left and gave up on the carving. I’m not the best carver anyways, so let’s not ruin his image.

When I saw that he took 20 years.

Thankfully, he eventually met a warrior named

Sakanoue no Tamuramaro was so impressed by the dedication of the Japanese monk that he decided to build a temple for Enchin to carve in. That temple is the Kiyomizu-Dera temple.

However, this is just a legend out of the many out there on why the temple is the way it is. Nobody knows if it's true or not, but if you believe it is, then who knows, it may be. Anyhow, that's it for today! Bye!