{Inter} Cultural Japan

Hosshoji Temple is so small and undistinguished, that our taxi driver has great problems locating it. The road on which it stands (Fushimi Kaido) is narrow and only allows one-way traffic, so that what should have been a short ride from Kyoto Station ends up in a wide circular drive. The taxi driver stops several times to ask passersby, but they only shake their head. The last person he asks knows the temple, but then, by chance, we are right in front of it.

From the street, it has the appearance of an ordinary house and if it were not for the wooden board with the temple’s name on it, we still would not have believed we had found it. After ringing the bell, we are greeted and led inside by an elderly lady. So small the temple is, so big is the welcome we receive. She fusses about, putting on the lights in the two rooms that form the temple. She gives an explanation of the temple’s history, hands us a flashlight to better examine the Kannon statue we have come to see, and when we sit down again on the tatami mats, she has cups of cold barley tea ready for us.

A Fujiwara Family Temple
Hosshoji was not always so small as it is today, she tells. On the contrary, when it was founded in 924 by Fujiwara Tadahira (880-949) it was one of Kyoto’s major temples. The main hall housed a statue of Dainichi, the cosmic Buddha and there were a South Hall, Godaido, bell tower and gate. In 945, Tadahira’s sister, who was the wife of Emperor Daigo, added a Tahoto Pagoda enshrining six Kannon images.

A family temple of the powerful Fujiwara clan, it flourished to such a degree that once its territory extended all over the area where now Tofukuji and Sennyuji stand. At one time the temple owned a hundred buildings, interspersed with the villas of the Fujiwaras, who themselves lived in this area. Tofukuji, now a vast establishment itself, came into being as a guest temple in the grounds of Hosshoji.

It was the 15th century Onin war, an event that brought terrible destruction over Kyoto (there are almost no buildings left dating from before this war) that also devastated Hosshoji. It was totally destroyed and stopped functioning as an institution. All that was left of the once proud establishment were a few statues that found refuge in other temples in the neighborhood.

Twenty-eight Headed Kannon
One of these statues was a thousand-armed, eleven-headed Kannon, that was sculpted when Hosshoji was founded (it is also possible it was one of the six Kannon statues of the Tahoto pagoda mentioned above). It is now housed in a small temple that is again called Hosshoji. Founded in the Edo period as a Jodo sect nunnery, this temple took over the name and Kannon statue of the former Fujiwara Hosshoji, but there could be no greater contrast between old and new.

The statue is a national treasure and the new Hosshoji shows it to visitors who come after having called in advance. It stands in a cabinet in the rear room. In the dim light, the delicate figure floats up from the gilded shrine. We receive incense to offer to the Kannon. Kneeling on the tatami mats in front of a low table we bow our head. Then we get up to explore the statue with the help of a flashlight. It appears to be remarkably small: only 109.7 cm high, but with its large array of heads and hands it is very complicated for this size.

The heads are a rarity. For a start, the statue has three faces. Besides the normal, frontal face there are two mask-like faces on either side of the head. One is contorted in an angry growl, the other smiles benignly. Next, there are not the usual eleven small heads in the crown of the Kannon, but twenty-five, arranged in three tiers. The top tier is the usual Amida, below that are two rows of heads going all the way around the scalp. This makes it not a eleven-faced Kannon, but one with twenty-eight countenances.

The Kannon also has 40 arms symbolizing the number thousand, as each hand can save twenty-five worlds. They carry the usual objects such as scepter, jewel, bell and rope. In addition, two hands that are folded together in front of the breast in prayer. The fingertips, however, are not quite joined, probably because the statue used to hold a ‘wish-fulfilling’ jewel.

The statue is nicknamed Yakuyoke Kannon, the Kannon who Wards off Misfortune. It exudes a certain strangeness, perhaps due to the uncommon arrangement of heads, but it is also extremely beautiful.

Tea on Tatami
We sit on the tatami, sipping tea and chatting with the woman to whose good care the statue is entrusted. When asked if she is the jushoku (chief priest), she says no, the priestess (it is a nunnery) has died earlier this year, aged more than 90. There is quite a steady stream of visitors, she adds, usually academics, researchers of art or history. She shows a book by the well-known historian Umehara Takeshi, featuring the temple with large color photos. This is an exception, she immediately adds: usually they do not want the statue photographed.

In the front room where we are sitting, loom two large shapes. These are wooden statues of Fudo Myoo and Yakushi Nyorai which the former priestess has made. Originally Hosshoji itself possessed such statues, but as all remaining statues were dispersed after the Onin War, they are now the main images of other temples in the neighborhood. One can not claim them back, therefore copies were made. Considering that these are twentieth century statues, they are quite beautiful.

But it is the Kannon, with its high crown of heads and the masks on the sides of her face, who steals the show. Sitting in that tiny temple, in a narrow street where a long row of heavy traffic creeps through, where the hot sun steams the exhaust fumes, this remarkable work of art is the only echo from another time. That was a time like a fairytale, when empresses donated pagodas, and when aristocrats, fearing evil influences, had images made with twenty-eight visages, to face all evils imaginable…

16 Honmachi, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto-shi
Tel. 075-541-8767
7-min. walk from Tofukuji Station on the Keihan and JR Lines.
Only by appointment.