The Great bronze Buddha of Kamakura , Japan
Very moving, very sacred. A notice at the entrance to the grounds reads:
“Stranger, whosoever thou art and whatsoever be thy creed,
when thou enterest this sanctuary
remember thou treadest upon ground hallowed by the worship of ages.
This is the Temple of Bhudda
and the gate of the eternal,
and should therefore be entered
with reverence.”
A stanza from the Five Nations by Rudyard Kipling:
But when the morning prayer is prayed,
Think, ere ye pass to strife and trade,
Is God in human image made
No nearer than Kamakura?
The bronze Kamakura Buddha statue, on top of a hill, dates from 1252, has survived two storms in 1334 and 1369, a tsunami in 1498, it weighs 93 tons, and is 48 feet tall.