Great Buddha of Kamakura

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About Great Buddha of Kamakura

The Great Buddha of Kamakura (Kamakura Daibutsu) is at Kotoku-in temple in the Hase neighborhood. It is a bronze statue of Amida Buddha seated in meditation, about 11 meters high and over 120 tons. It was cast beginning in 1252 with donations collected by a monk, and is a National Treasure.

The statue once stood inside a large wooden hall that was destroyed by storms and a tsunami at the end of the 15th century. Since then, the Buddha has been outdoors with the hills behind it. You can still see the stone bases of the old hall’s columns in the courtyard. The bronze surface has a greenish tone and retains traces of the original gold layer near the ears.

Visitors can enter the statue through a small door at the side to see inside how the bronze pieces were cast and fitted in stages. Entry to the interior requires a separate fee and operates on its own schedule.

On the temple grounds there is also a pair of large woven straw sandals donated by children from Ibaraki Prefecture, and a small garden. The Great Buddha is a few minutes’ walk from Hase-dera temple and Yuigahama Beach, and the street up from Hase Station has sweet shops and souvenir stores. The statue has appeared in prints and photographs since the 19th century, when the first foreign visitors arrived in Kamakura from Yokohama, and a poem by Rudyard Kipling helped make it known outside Japan.