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There is one very special image of Sakyamuni, the historical Buddha, one that claims to be modeled after the Buddha himself, during his lifetime, and that therefore became the object of a particularly fervent popular cult in Japan in the 13th century. This wondrous image still can be seen in the Shaka-do, the Sakyamuni Hall in Sagano, in a temple called Seiryoji…

[The Main Hall of Seiryoji Temple, Kyoto - Photo © Ad Blankestijn]

A Portrait of Sakyamuni
The legend is told in the Agama Sutra as follows. When the Buddha was 37 years of age, so just two years after his Enlightenment, he temporarily left the earth to go to the Toriten Heaven where his mother Maya resided, to preach her the Buddhist Law. King Udayana (Uten-o in Japanese) of Kausambi missed the presence of the Buddha so much that he fell ill. His household hit upon the idea to send the best sculptor in the land after the Buddha. The resulting statue could then be used to pay homage to as a substitute for the Buddha.

Maudgalayana, the Buddha’s disciple who was foremost in supernatural powers, transported the sculptor to heaven and the result was a five-foot tall likeness of the Buddha made out of sandalwood. The king was happy beyond words and immediately felt cured. When three months later the Buddha himself came down from heaven, the statue arose and paid homage to him. The Buddha said: “Return to your seat. After my Nirvana, you will serve as a model to my followers.”

This statue, together with its accompanying legend, was discovered in India by adventurous, traveling monks from China in the Six Dynasties and Tang period. It must have been a new type of statue, which happened to be popular in India just at that time. Those monks, such as Faxian (early 5th c.) and Xuanzang (7th c.), then brought copies of the statue, together with many other images and sutras, back to China. In fact, the image Xuanzang brought back in 645 seems to have been made of precious sandalwood, like the one in the legend.

[The impressive gate of Seiryoji Temple, Kyoto - Photo © Ad Blankestijn]

A Chinese-Indian statue travels to Japan
History again shifts a few centuries. When in the late tenth century Chonen (938-1016), a priest from Nara’s Todaiji, visited China, he happened to come across a copy of this ‘Udayana statue’ (as it was called after the Indian king who commissioned it) in a temple called Kaiyuansi in Daizhou. Impressed, presumably both by the legend and the in Japanese eyes exotic statue, he asked two prominent Chinese sculptors to make a copy for him. He brought this back to Japan in 985, where finally in 1018 it was installed by his disciple Josan (Chonen had died already) in a Shaka Hall at the foot of Mt. Atago, in the western outskirts of Kyoto.

It took again two more centuries before the image breakthrough to popularity in Japan. That happened at the end of the 12th century, when such prominent figures as the priest Myoe (1173-1232) expressed their devotion. But it was Eison (1201-1290) who made the Udayana icon (now more properly called Seiryoji Shaka) into a cult. Eison, the founder of the Shingon Ritsu school based at Saidaiji, was deeply devoted to the historical Buddha, and in 1249 he ordered a copy of the Seiryoji Shaka. This is now still the main image of Saidaiji. It was repeatedly copied over the following decades - in all more than one hundred copies were made, which can still be found all over Japan. The statue of the Living Shaka had become a craze in Japan.

[The Flower festival of Buddha's Birthday in Seiryoji Temple, Kyoto - Photo © Ad Blankestijn]

The Shaka Hall of Saga
To see the living Shaka, make your way to Seiryoji, a temple more familiar among residents by its popular name Saga Shaka-do, the Sakyamuni Hall of Saga. Saga, of course, refers to Sagano, the area around Arashiyama in the north-western outskirts of Kyoto. Seiryoji stands somewhat apart from the rest of Sagano and Arashiyama, an area that is nowadays overrun by hordes of tourists. Some parts of this formerly quiet and even slightly forlorn locale now remind one of Tokyo’s Harajuku, with a proliferation of junk shops for the young. Seiryoji’s strong Niomon gate seems to act as a protection and its wide grounds are peaceful and serve to induce a serene mood.

Seiryoji was founded in 945 on the estate of Minamoto no Toru, a son of the Emperor Saga (and the person who served as the model for the “shining prince” from the Genji Monogatari). It was then called Seikaji. The original statues, a splendid Amida Trinity, are now housed in the temple museum. Chonen had studied in China at a temple called Qingliangsi (Seiryoji in Japanese) at Mt. Wutai. He saw in Mt. Atago a substitute for Mt. Wutai and wanted to set up his own temple at the foot of that mountain. He died before he could gather the funds to realize this wish and as a compromise his disciple Jozan then built a Shaka Hall in the grounds of Seikaji. The complete edition of the sutras Chonen had brought from China, the Issaikyo, was also stored here.

Due to the popularity of its statue, the Shaka Hall gradually became more important than the original temple and the name was finally changed into Seiryoji. The Hondo (a beautiful Edo-period hall dating from 1701) housing the Shaka statue stands in a straight line from the Nio Gate (1776). There are various other buildings surrounding it, such as a Tahoto pagoda (1703), an Amida Hall (1863), and a sutra library (mid-Edo period).

[The Pagoda of Seiryoji Temple, Kyoto - Photo © Ad Blankestijn]

The Living Buddha
The altar of Shaka stands right in the middle of the spacious hall, so that one can walk around it. On the walls are paintings of the Seiryoji Engi, the legendary history of the temple. One can not come very close to the statue, but through the wide open doors of the cabinet the view is good even from a distance. Shaka, slim and erect in a standing pose, made from dark-brown wood and carved in a symmetrical style with deep folds of his gown, seems to hover in front of a golden background. It is a rather austere wooden statue, very different from the gilded Buddha images current in the period when it was made. The hands are in the usual semui and yogan mudras.

But everything else is odd about this Chinese statue. The 163 cm tall Shaka is clad in a long robe, falling down from both shoulders to the ankles, and fitting close around the body. Instead of the usual curls the hair has been made up in a wavy pattern. Both the drapery style and hairdo became associated with this type of ‘Living Shaka.’ As 10th c. Chinese statues were very different, too, there may indeed be Indian or central-Asian stylistic elements in this statue, although in that case rather 4th century CE than BCE. As it was supposed to be a portrait of the Buddha, the copies that were made through the ages must have been very faithful and precise. As material Chinese cherry-wood was used. Originally the image was colored.

In the back of Shaka, unseen by visitors, is a sort of lid, giving access to a part hollowed out in the wood, that when opened during restoration work in 1953, rendered colorful silk objects shaped like human internal organs, apparently made in China and put into the original statue at its creation. The names of the Chinese sculptors were also inscribed here (‘Zhang Yanjiao and Zhang Yanxi of Taizhou in the Great Song’). The internal organs consist of heart, liver, gall bladder, stomach, kidneys, throat, intestines, and lungs. It was so to speak a magically animated icon. There were other items inside as well, such as parts of sutras, block-printed effigies, beads, coins, etc. These and the statue itself have been declared national treasures.

[Sakura and pagoda, Seiryoji Temple, Kyoto - Photo © Ad Blankestijn]

Also in the Edo-period the Living Buddha of Seiryoji was very popular and the statue was carried in a richly decorated litter (on view in the temple’s main hall) to Edo and other cities for a Dekaicho, a special unveiling of the statue meant to spread the cult and strengthen the temple’s finances. Keishoin, the mother of the Shogun Tsunayoshi favored the temple with many treasures, from lacquered utensils to the altar cabinet now still in use and a large canopy with the Tokugawa emblem.

Interestingly, although the temple’s main image is a Shaka statue, Seiryoji belongs to the Jodo denomination that usually has a Amida Buddha as the central object of veneration. The Seiryoji Shaka must have been too powerful to replace. The association with Pure Land Buddhism already dates to the times of the sect’s founder, Honen, who in 1156 stayed in Seiryoji for a special prayer session and deeply honered the Shaka statue. After that, in the late thirteenth century, the temple became a place where Yuzu Nembutsu, a Jodo sect, found its home, and it was formally made into a Jodo temple in 1530. The Jodo heritage is also reflected in the Nembutsu Kyogen morality plays still performed in Seiryoji on certain festival days.

[Nembutsu Kyogen play, Seiryoji Temple, Kyoto - Photo © Ad Blankestijn]

Temple Treasures
If you now proceed to the temple museum, standing to the right of the Shaka Hall, somewhat behind the Amida Hall, you will find these silk organs exhibited on the second floor. They look very realistic in their subdued colors and prove that the science of anatomy had reached a high level in 10th c. China. Many of the other votive objects are also shown. The same museum has more things related to Shaka. Upstairs you may see a set of hanging scrolls of the Sixteen Arhats (disciples of the Buddha, see below), also brought back from China by Chonen. They are among the oldest arhat paintings left and the only ones that have come down to us from the Song dynasty. On the ground floor you will find a nice set of the Ten Great Disciples of Shaka, all realistic images from the early 11th c. To make the groups of Shaka attendants complete, there are also impressive statues of Monju and Fugen (late 10th c.). In other words, Seiryoji provides a complete Shaka universe: the Ten great Disciples, the Bodhisattvas Monju and Fugen, and arhats.

This does not exhaust the riches of this small museum. Immediately at the entrance you will see the large and serene Amida Trinity, dated 896, and part of the original temple. The aristocratic-looking Amida statue is flanked by the attendants Seishi and Kannon. They impress with the delicacy of the carving, especially of the intricate halo of the Amida. Compared with the Amida statues of Sanzenin in Ohara or Byodoin-in in Uji, however, the Saga statues exude a certain aloofness and they lack the human warmth of these other representations. There is also a great Tobatsu Bishamonten statue, as well as images of the Four Deva Kings (Shitenno). In other words, this small and almost unknown museum contains one of the best collections of Heian sculpture in Kyoto.

Finally, we return once more to the Shaka Hall to pay our respects to the small dark statue. Called a statue of the ‘living Buddha,’ it was made into a living statue itself by the internal organs placed inside. The fervent belief of the faithful gave it breath of its own. Seiryoji’s Shaka is not just a statue of the living Buddha, to the faithful it is the living Buddha in person and as such it has been deeply venerated for many centuries.

[Flowering trees in the grounds of Seiryoji Temple, Kyoto - Photo © Ad Blankestijn]

Address: Fujinoki-cho, Saga Shakado, Ukyo-ku, Kyoto.

Hours: 9:00-16:00. Principal Shaka image only completely unveiled on special days, as April 8 (Buddha’s Birthday). Normally, the interior of the Main Hall and the moss garden in front of the Shoin can be viewed. Temple Museum (Reihokan) only open in April-May and October-November from 9:30-16:30.

Access: 15 min on foot from Saga-Arashiyama St on the JR Sagano line.

Denomination: Jodo Buddhism

Foundation: By Chonen in 986

Festivals: Sagano Taimatsu on March 15. To commemorate the death of Sakyamuni, Nembutsu Kyogen from 14:00. At 19:30 three huge torches are set ablaze to divine the coming harvest. Hana Matsuri (Kanbutsu-e) on April 8. Nembutsu Kyogen between 13:00 and 16:00. A statue of a white elephant is set up in front of the hall with a Tanjobutsu on its head; sweet tea is offered to visitors; and inside, in front of the main Shaka statue that this day is completely unveiled, visitors can douse another Tanjobutsu with sweet tea.