Tag: religion

Senso-ji: a Buddhist Masterpiece

The venerable Senso-ji Buddhist temple (officially Kinryū-zan Sensō-ji (金龍山浅草寺)) is located in the Asakusa area of downtown Tokyo. The photo above (follow the link for more of this beautiful compound) shows Hozomon (the Treasure House Gate) that provides an entrance to the main temple; it is flanked by Senso-ji’s five story pagoda on the left.

Founded in 645 CE, Senso-ji is the oldest established temple in Tokyo. The temple is dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon (観音菩薩), called Guanyin in Chinese; this beloved Buddhist deity is associated with compassion. Senso-ji is one of Japan’s most important Buddhist temples and one of the country’s most popular tourist attractions. In fact the Wikipedia entry for Senso-ji informs us that “it is the most widely visited religious site in the world with over 30 million visitors annually.” For what it is worth, there was no shortage of visitors on the day I went.

Tourists who have arrived at Senso-ji before the crowds line up to take photos in front of Kaminarimon

The first gate, the street side entrance that one passes through on the way to the inner compound, is Kaminarimon (the Thunder Gate) . When I arrived at around 8:20 in the morning, tourists were beginning to trickle into the compound. Before heading inside quite a few people were waiting in line along the street for the chance to get an unobstructed photo of themselves standing dead center in front of the gate. There were a few solo travelers taking selfies, but it was mostly couples who would switch off, each taking two or three photos of their mate. A few people got a bit carried away, but the line remained orderly and people were impeccably polite. It was actually rather charming to watch. The photo below is the same scene as seen from inside the gate just before I turned my back and set off towards Hozomon.

The view of tourist lined up for photos from inside Kaminarimon

It is worth noting that none of the buildings one sees today within the large compound date back to the temple’s founding. The temple area was leveled in a March, 1945, bombing raid towards the end of WWII. Today’s buildings are reconstructions completed for the most part in the 1950s and 1960s. Wartime destruction was not the first time parts of Senso-ji were devastated; buildings within the compound have been destroyed by fire on numerous occasions during the 1700 years of Senso-ji’s existence.

Hozomon from the front or south face.
Hozomon from the rear or north face.

The two images above are both of Hozomon, the second of the gates between the entrance to the compound and the main temple of Senso-ji. In the first, I am facing the front of the gate as I walk towards the main temple. It is about 8:30am and the October sun is still fairly low in the sky behind my right shoulder. I took the second image from the top of the steps leading into the main temple. This side of the gate faces north; the sun is in front of me and to my left. Though it does not bring me level with the roof, my elevation shows how steep that roof is, and how it dominates the building below it.

I have lived in East and Southeast Asia for some 35 years now and have visited lots of Buddhist temples during those years, in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and now Japan. Some of these have been large, wealthy and well-known, some draw crowds of tourists, but many have been small and unknown to all but the monks and nuns that call them home and the devout Buddhists that they serve. Buddhist temples and pagodas in Japan are similar in some respects to their counterparts in China, but Japanese design is strikingly different in other ways. The roofs of the buildings, in particular, are very steep and they project out quite far from the actual building. Japanese multi-storied pagodas like the one in Senso-ji are unique, I have seen nothing like them elsewhere in my travels. I am not familiar with the terminology used to describe architectural designs and features, so it is best to let the photos speak for themselves.

The magnificent five story pagoda at Senso-ji.
Decorative door art at Senso-ji.
The main temple at Senso-ji.

I am disappointed in myself that I do not have more images of the main temple building and the area around it. One of the lessons of this and other visits to well-known destinations in Japan is that my approach as a photographer to these places needs to be better organized and more disciplined. As I look through the folder of Senso-ji images, I not only see what is there, but also a number of images that are missing.

By the time I left Senso-ji shortly after 11am, any semblance of order at the Kaminarimon gate had disappeared as crowds of visitors headed inside to see the temple compound.

Being the world’s most visited religious site has its drawbacks, or so it seems to me.

Meiji Jingu: On Sacred Ground

Meiji Jingu Ichino Torii is pictured here. Gates like this are called torii and are found throughout Japan at the entrances and within Shinto shrines. As entrance ways, torii mark the spot where visitors pass from the mundane world of humanity to the sacred ground of the shrine. The torii shown here stands at the entrance to the Meiji Jingu (明治神宮) in Tokyo, one of Japan’s most important shrines honoring the spirits of the Emperor Meiji and the Empress Shoken, his wife. After passing beneath the torii, one walks through a breathtakingly beautiful wooded area before approaching the shrine itself several hundred meters from the entrance.

The sacred path to Meiji Jingu.

Born in the sequestered imperial compound in Kyoto in 1852, Emperor Meiji ascended to the throne in 1867 and ruled until his death in 1912. “Meiji” is not the birth name of the young man who became the emperor of Japan at age 15; rather it is his reign or era name that was assigned to his reign in 1868. A tradition that originated in China more than 2000 years ago, the Japanese have adopted and adapted the era name concept to suit their own purposes. Since I am definitely not up to speed about how this complicated scheme actually works, suffice it to say that imperial era names serve as a kind of calendar, allowing historical events to be dated by the year of the reign era in which they occur. This system remains in use today in Japan.

A man cleans the sacred path with a song by Empress Shoken and a poem by Emperor Meiji in the background.

Meiji’s reign encompassed a period of rapid change and transformation in Japan. For hundreds of years prior to his ascending the throne, Japanese emperors lived in seclusion in Kyoto where their functions were ceremonial; they took no part in actually ruling the islands we call Japan. Political power was in the hands of a Shogun supported by feudal vassals called Daimyo. Pre-Meiji Japan was a closed society that had limited contact with nearby China and Korea, and even less with peoples elsewhere in the world. Foreign traders were limited to doing business in a single city: Nagasaki.

As a schoolboy, I learned of how in 1852 President Millard Fillmore dispatched US Navy Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan at the head of a squadron of gunboats, his mission to demand that the Japanese open their country to US trade. We were taught to be proud of this example of our country fulfilling its Manifest Destiny, how it illustrated the growing power of the United States in world affairs, and our civilizing influence that brought progress to a benighted, backward land. I have no idea if American school children today learn about the “opening of Japan” and, if they do, how this story is presented. I do know that I now view the tale of Commodore Perry as an early example of arrogant American militarism and imperial designs bent on imposing American power on another people.

This tea house, located in a quiet garden off the wooded path leading to Meiji Jingu, was built by Emperor Meiji for his wife Empress Shoken.

In the event, Japan’s isolated, closed system was destabilized by Perry’s arrival and the threat inherent in the steam-powered warships he brought with him. His visit and those of various Europeans during this time period led to internal turmoil and finally helped to trigger great changes that began with Emperor Meiji’s ascension to the throne. His 45 year reign is referred to as the Meiji Restoration, and during Meiji’s reign the emperor emerged from seclusion and began taking a direct part in the governing of Japan. Beginning its pursuit of modernity with a mature, highly sophisticated culture and society, but well behind the United States and the great powers of Europe with respect to science and technology, Japan developed into an industrial and military powerhouse in a matter several decades. Japan’s rapid rise to great power status was one of many factors that set the world on a path to devastating global conflict in the first half of the 20th century.

Mejii Jingu.
The original shrine was destroyed by bombing at the end of WWII. This majestic reconstruction was completed in 1958.

Initially, it was advisers of the young emperor driving change, but as Emperor Meiji aged, he became directly involved in decision making. Not long before heading to Japan, I bought Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852–1912, a book by the late Donald Keene, a preeminent American scholar of Japanese literature, culture, and history. Keene’s introduction to the book suggests Meiji was a complex man, enigmatic in many respects, whose life and historical record are very difficult to assess. One thing is certain: Professor Keene went to great lengths in his effort to understand Emperor Meiji. The digital edition of the book weighs in at about 950 pages, and while I am definitely interested, so far I have not gotten up the gumption to dive in.

St. Nikolaus Church, Innsbruck, Austria

I spent an October day in Innsbruck, Austria, a chance to relax in between larger, more demanding travel venues. The small city is beautiful, featuring plenty of scenic vistas provided by the Tyrolean Alps, more monuments to the Hapsburgs, and good food and beverages. I did little more than wander around for a day, but was in town long enough to get this postcard cliche shot of a lovely Gothic church in late afternoon light with the rugged Alps in the background.

Busy Old Town, Kraków, Poland

The last stop on my trip was Kraków, Poland’s second largest city in the south of the country. During the three weeks since I had left Vietnam, I had covered a lot of ground in Europe, dozens of kilometers walking about the places I stopped and hundreds of kilometers in trains connecting me to destinations in Austria, Slovenia, Italy, Czechia, and Poland, all of which I was visiting for the first time. I had enjoyed myself throughout, but by the time I got to Kraków, I was suffering from a mild case of travel fatigue.

In fact, Kraków turned out to be an ideal place for this rather weary traveler to end his trip. Most importantly for me, the city is considerably smaller than Prague or Vienna, in terms of both area and population; it was much easier to get around Kraków. The main island of Venice is also small, but it is a difficult place to find one’s way, whereas Kraków is wonderfully simple.

Kraków is beautiful, and it is obvious that considerable effort has gone into preserving the historical character of this very old city, the origins of which date back to the 10th century of the Common Era. For hundreds of years, Kraków was home to Polish kings; today the city’s museums house relics of Polish royalty. The Kraków Old Town and Wawel Castle, both UNESCO World Heritage sites, are at the heart of what was medieval Kraków. I spent a good deal of my four days in Kraków walking around this part of the city. There were other places to see in and around Kraków, but I was content to limit the scope of my visit. When I visit a Kraków (or Vienna, Prague, of Venice) for three or four days, I am well aware that going to one site means, in effect, that I have chosen not to go a dozen or more other sites. I give little thought to this, nor do I feel compelled to move “must see” attractions to the head of my list of places to see.

St. Mark’s and the Doge’s Palace in Venice were impressive indeed, but walking through some of the small calle was the most exciting part of my visit to Venice. Several years ago in Paris, I waited in the long line to get into the Louvre and stood with the crowd holding iPhones in the air to get a shot of the Mona Lisa. I can tick the Have Seen box for that painting, but honestly I was not very impressed. It was the huge Renoir’s hanging in the Musée d’Orsay and the sculpture in the small Rodin Museum, which I entered to escape an oppressively hot July day, that left me breathless.

But I am straying from delightful Kraków. The image here was taken in the medieval market square at the center of the Kraków Old Town. It is late afternoon on a busy Friday. St. Mary’s Basilica, built in the 14th century in the Polish Gothic style, is on the left. A section of the massive Cloth Hall is one the right. This was an important trading center for merchants throughout Europe for many years. Today it is filled with stalls selling souvenirs to tourists. I bought a number of t-shirts of the I Love Poland variety to give as gifts when I got home.

Sunset on the Final Day in Prague

The Church of Our Lady before Týn is on the east side of Old Town Square; it’s Gothic towers were directly opposite the sun that was soon to set in the west. St. Nicholas’ Church, pictured below, is on the north side of the Square; the light on its facade was a subdued gleam, not the intense glow of the other church. The next morning I would leave Prague on a train headed to Krakow in Poland. The magnificent sunset on my final evening in Prague was a wonderful send off.

Saint and Martyr, John of Nepomuk

The Charles Bridge has 30 statues that line the balustrades on each of its sides. The statue pictured here is that of Saint John of Nepomuk; it was installed in 1683 and is the oldest statue on the bridge.

John was born in a small town in Bohemia (today’s Czech Republic) in the 14th century. He studied canon law in Prague and Padua in Italy, and eventually became the head vicar of a large cathedral in Prague. At this point, John ran afoul of Wenceslaus IV, the king of Bohemia, over the appointment of an abbot to a powerful abbey in Bohemia. To add some spice to the stew of religious nonsense that John got caught up in, there were two popes at the time, one in Rome and one Avignon, France. Naturally, the two popes were antagonists quarreling over the kind of stuff that religious types always seem to be fighting about; you know, god, beliefs, doctrine, all of which generally boil down to money and power. In the case of the abbot’s appointment, the king’s man was favored by the pope in France, while the choice of the Archbishop of Prague, John’s boss, was supported by the pope in Rome. In the event, John appointed the archbishop’s nominee. The king threw a hissy fit and, on 20 March 1393, had the hapless head vicar tortured and thrown off the Charles Bridge to drown in the Vtlava River. John was canonized some 300 years later; there was only one pope in Rome at the time.

St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague Castle

St. Vitus Cathedral is the centerpiece of Prague Castle; perched on a hilltop, the cathedral’s towers are readily visible from throughout Prague. Construction of the Gothic cathedral, the third church to be built on this site, began in 1344, and proceeded for several hundred years, interrupted by war, fire, lack of funds, and changes in designers. Work on the church was not completed until the latter half of the 19th century. The cathedral was finally consecrated in 1929. Just short of 600 years – this must be a record of some kind.

The massive cathedral stands in a courtyard that is small relative to the size of the building. I used an ultra-wide 20mm lens to capture the entire building in a single frame. The price one pays for the wide view this lens gives in tight places is perspective distortion. It is possible to correct for this distortion in Photoshop, but bringing the towers to a position perpendicular to the ground flattens the image. The towers looked squashed, for lack of a better word.

I headed out to Prague Castle early on a chilly October Sunday morning, arriving at around 8:30. The ticket I bought gave me entrance to several of the Castle’s attractions including the interior of the St. Vitus. But because it was Sunday morning, the church was closed for services until after 12 noon and I never made it inside.

St. Nicholas Church, Prague

When I began thinking about a trip that would take me to central Europe, Prague was at the top of my list of destinations. What little I knew of the city conjured up romantic visions. Though unfamiliar with all but the broadest outlines, I knew Prague had a long history and had played an important part in regional history and development. I had seen beautiful photos of the city, many of which seemed to be focused on the Vltava River that runs through the heart of old Prague.

I am not a fan of travel guides, I don’t carry a copy of Lonely Planet or Frommer’s in my bag, nor do I spend much time with online travel guides. I am, however, very interested in the history of the places I visit. I read a decent, though definitely not world-class, account of the Hapsburgs, which consisted mostly of a series of portraits and anecdotes of Hapsburg rulers over the years. Rigorous historical analysis of the societies the Hapsburgs ruled and molded, and the influence this pivotal family had over hundreds of years on the drama of European history were largely missing. I started and put down after 50 or so pages a history of Venice. Because the book contained blatant factual errors that a non-expert like me could identify, I assumed that the large parts of the story with which I was not familiar were also riddled with factual errors and misinformation. Seemed pointless to continue reading.

Finding information on the history of Prague proved difficult. There are a number of books tracing the 20th century history of Czechoslovakia, established at the end of WWI after the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Freed of Soviet domination with the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s, the Czech and Slovak areas of Czechoslovakia agreed on a friendly separation and on the first day of 1993, the Czech Republic and Slovakia came into existence.

That is all well and good, but there is simply not much written in English about the Czech people and the Czech lands before 1918 when Czechoslovakia was born. For hundreds of years Prague was the social, economic and political center of the Kingdom of Bohemia. Many of the city’s best known historical sites and tourist attractions had their origins during the Bohemian years. Bohemia was a key part of the Holy Roman Empire for much of its 1000 year history. Beginning early in the 1500s, Bohemia became one of the lands ruled by a Hapsburg monarch, and it remained a Hapsburg dominion until the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918. Complex, convoluted history, the stuff I find fascinating – I will continue looking for reading material that provides more about Prague, Bohemia, and central Europe more generally.

I stayed in a hotel within easy walking distance of Prague’s Old Town, originally a walled enclosure that formed the center of the medieval city, the origins of which date back to the 9th century CE. My walk to the Old Town took me through a part of the New Town, a latecomer to Prague’s development founded in 1348, an area of some paved avenues with considerable traffic, public and private, and quiet cobblestone streets lined with buildings displaying a medley of architectural styles. Walking west past the Old Town brought me to the famous Charles Bridge, and after crossing that I found myself in the Lesser Town, a walk through which takes one to Prague Castle, perched on a hilltop and visible from many parts of the city. Honestly, trying to figure out how the various old districts have been put together into what makes Prague today is material for a world-class headache. Suffice it to say, Prague is a beautiful city. On all of my walks, I was treated to alluring mixes of very old to merely old to relatively modern structures – Baroque churches, art-deco public buildings, medieval gothic towers, and the occasional contemporary low-rise hotel or office building.

The St. Nicholas Church pictured here is one of the landmarks of the Lesser Town. The baroque church and the buildings around it are an example of the stylistic medley that makes up much of Prague.