Osaka Temples and Shrines

A couple of weekends ago, I took advantage of the spring weather (finally!) and took a day trip to Osaka. There are a couple of temples and shrines there that I have been wanting to visit, so off I went! I started at Tennoji Park where I took this photo of the fountain (still looks very winter-ish, I know, but it really was warm-ish!)

Then I visited Shitenno-ji temple. It was really cool, and one of the few temples in Japan that has a torii (the gate at the entrance. Typically when you see these torii, you can assume you're at a Shinto shrine, rather than a Buddhist temple.) Shitenno-ji is one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Japan (the brochure says it is the first state-established Buddhist temple), founded in 593 by Prince Shotoku. Shitenno means four guardian kings, and the temple is dedicated to them.

I'm not sure exactly what was happening that day (or maybe it was just a normal day), but everyone was writing out messages (or maybe sutra) on very thin pieces of wood. They passed them into the monks who waved them through incense, and then chanted whatever was written on the wood. Then they were returned to the writer. Whatever service this was, it was expensive, about $30.

This temple complex had a garden that was based on a Buddhist parable, Nigabyaku-doh. There are two rivers, one of water and one of fire. The water river symbolizes a greedy mind, and the fire river symbolizes anger or grudge. Between the two rivers is a white path which leads to paradise! So this garden has two small streams and a path between them. This photo is of one of the rivers (they were both of water, so it was hard to tell which was supposed to be the one symbolizing anger).

After Shitenno-ji, I visited another nearby temple, Isshinji, which the kindly lady at the tourist office recommended. She only said it was famous in that area. What she didn't say is that this temple makes statues of Buddhas out of the ashes of dead people. Creepy! To make one of these statues, Okotsubutsu, the remains (ashes) of 20,000 people are powdered and kneaded into the shape of Buddha! They began this practice in 1887 and every ten years they make another statue. The temple had a very large cemetary behind it - I guess everyone wants to be part of a Buddhist statue!

Next I took a streetcar south to Sumiyoshi Taisha. What's interesting about this shrine is that it's one of the three remaining shrines built prior to the arrival of Buddhism in Japan. The shrine is torn down and rebuilt exactly as it was every so many years, so while these buildings were built in 1810, their design is much older than that (3rd century).

Even the phone booths have a similar design!

The shrine has a famous bridge which several people were sketching that day (as I mentioned, it was one of the first nice spring days).

This little boy's mother told him to pose and look cute. He immediately did an adorable Shirley Temple impersonation!

Finally, I had my fill of old shrines and temples, and so I ended the day at the ultra-modern Umeda Sky Building. It's a famous 40 storey skyscraper, built for the view of the city.