, also known as Ōno-dera is a

Buddhist temple A Buddhist temple or Buddhist monastery is the place of worship for Buddhism, Buddhists, the followers of Buddhism. They include the structures called vihara, chaitya, stupa, wat, khurul and pagoda in different regions and languages. Temples in B ...

located in the Murō-Ōno neighborhood of the city of

Uda, Nara 270px, Uda City Hall is a city located in northeastern Nara Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 26,814 in 12647 households, and a population density of 110 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Uda i ...

. It belongs to the Murōji-branch of

Shingon Buddhism is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asian Buddhism. It is a form of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism and is sometimes called "Tōmitsu" (東密 lit. "Esoteric uddhismof Tō-j ...

and its ''

honzon , sometimes referred to as a Gohonzon ( or ), is the enshrined main image or principal deity in Japanese Buddhism. The buddha, bodhisattva, or mandala image is located in either a temple or a household butsudan. The image can be either a statue ...

'' is a statue of

Miroku Bosatsu Miroku may refer to: * Japanese for "Maitreya Buddha": as prophesied by the Buddha before entering nirvana. * Miroku, the character in the anime and manga series '' InuYasha''. * Miroku Corp., a gun manufacturer. * Miroku, a character in Naruto: ...

. The temple is located at the western entry to Muro-ji and is known for its rock-carved image of Miroku Bosatsu carved into a natural face on the bank of the Uda River, which was designated a National Historic Site in 1934.

Overview

The origins of the temple are uncertain. According to the temple's legend, it was first established by the semi-legendary founder of

Shugendō is a syncretic Esoteric Buddhist religion, a body of ascetic practices that originated in the Nara Period of Japan having evolved during the 7th century from an amalgamation of beliefs, philosophies, doctrines and ritual systems drawn prim ...

En no Gyōja was a Japanese ascetic and mystic, traditionally held to be the founder of Shugendō, the path of ascetic training practiced by the ''gyōja'' or ''yamabushi''. He was banished by the Imperial Court to Izu Ōshima on June 26, 699, but folk t ...

, in 681. In 824,

Kūkai , born posthumously called , was a Japanese Buddhist monk, calligrapher, and poet who founded the Vajrayana, esoteric Shingon Buddhism, Shingon school of Buddhism. He travelled to China, where he studied Tangmi (Chinese Vajrayana Buddhism) und ...

reconstructed the temple, and renamed it Jison-in Miroku-ji. The nearby temple of Murō-ji was originally a Hosso sect temple founded and developed by monks from Kofuku-ji, and since monks from Kofuku-ji were also involved in the carving of its rock-carved Buddhist statues, it believed is that Ōno-ji was closely related to Kofuku-ji. The temple was completely destroyed by fire in 1900 in which all of its ancient records were destroyed. At that time, the ''honzon'' image and other Buddha statues were saved from the fire, but the current buildings were all modern reconstructions. The temple is located a five-minute walk from Murōguchi-Ōno Station on the

Kintetsu Railway , referred to as and officially Kinki-Nippon Railway, is a Japanese passenger railway company, managing infrastructure and operating passenger train service. Its railway system is the largest in Japan, excluding Japan Railways Group. The railw ...

Osaka Line The is a railway line in Japan owned by Kintetsu Railway, connecting Osaka and Mie Prefecture via Nara Prefecture. The line is the longest double-tracked railway of non-JR operators. Together with the Nagoya Line, this line forms the route for ...

Ōno-ji Stone Buddha

The term ''magaibutsu'' ( 磨崖仏) refers to a Buddhist figure carved directly into a natural rock faces or cliffside. The Miroku Bosatsu image at Ōno-ji is a ''magaibutsu'' carved into a large rock wall about 30 meters high on the opposite bank of the Uda River. The rock wall was carved into a halo shape over a height of 13.8 meters, and the inside was smoothed and carved into a 11.5 meter tall

bas-relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

image. Work began in 1207 at the request of the monk Gaen of Kofuku-ji, and the eye-opening ceremony was held in 1209 in the presence of cloistered

Emperor Go-Toba was the 82nd emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. His reign spanned the years from 1183 through 1198. This 12th-century sovereign was named after Emperor Toba, and ''go-'' (後), translates literally as "later"; ...

. The creator is thought to be a stonemason who came to Japan from

Song China The Song dynasty ( ) was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, ending ...

. It is modeled after a large stone statue of Miroku Bosatsu (of which only the halo remains today) that was located on

Mount Kasagi is a 289-meter mountain located in the town of Kasagi, Soraku District, Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai area of Japan. The mountain is known for its many oddly shaped rocks and as a battlefield during the wars of the Kenmu Restoration at the e ...

Yamashiro Province was a province of Japan, located in Kinai. It overlaps the southern part of modern Kyoto Prefecture on Honshū. Aliases include , the rare , and . It is classified as an upper province in the '' Engishiki''. Yamashiro Province included Kyoto it ...

. The statue was surveyed in 1916 by archaeologists, who discovered that the image had a hole in its chest, sealed by a stone lid eight-cm in diameter and three-cm thick. A small scroll was found inside, but the characters were illegible. There was also a hole in the abdomen around the navel, and a scroll was found inside, but it was so badly decomposed that it was illegible. To the lower left of the main image is a 2.2 meter diameter circle carved into an outline of a

mandala A mandala (, ) is a geometric configuration of symbols. In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space and as an aid ...

, with

Vairocana Vairocana (from Sanskrit: Vi+rocana, "from the sun" or "belonging to the sun", "Solar", or "Shining"), also known as Mahāvairocana (Great Vairocana), is a major Buddha from Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. Vairocana is often interpreted, in text ...

in the center and

Siddhaṃ script (also ') is an Brahmic scripts, Indic script used in India from the 6th century to the 13th century. Also known in its later evolved form as Siddhamātṛkā, Siddham is a medieval Brahmic scripts, Brahmic abugida, derived from the Gupta sc ...

characters representing various Buddhas carved into the periphery, which is thought to date to the same period as the main image. The statue was endangered by groundwater seeping out of the bedrock, so conservation and repair work was carried out from 1993 to 1999. Work included removing moss from the surface and changing the flow path of the groundwater.

National Important Cultural Properties

* standing statue, early Kamakura-period, ''yosegi-zukuri'', 98.8-cm tall. Important Cultural Property. file:Onodera, sanmon.jpg, Gate of the temple file:Onodera, keidai.jpg, Precincts file:Cerasus spachiana at Ono-dera 01.jpg, Weeping ''sakura''

Bibliography

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References

External links