The oldest Buddhist temple in Japan
Tuesday, October 4th, 2016
Osaka is home to Shitennoji, which is considered to be the oldest Buddhist temple in Japan. We couldn’t miss an opportunity to take a look at it before hitting the road again so we planned a few hours in early morning to walk around Tennoji district in southern Osaka. Along with visiting the temple, we had a choice of getting on the very top of Abeno Harukas, the tallest skyscraper in Japan, or walking around Tennoji park.
For breakfast we enjoyed some figs and peaches picked up the evening before at the Kuromon market, on our way from Arashiyama. The subway ride from Osaka station to Tennoji took surprisingly long — half an hour — so we decided to skip the skyscraper and the park visit. Instead, we decided to wander around the station to get a feel of the neighbourhood.
The area was quiet and rather ordinary, so we cut our walk short and headed toward the temple. We’ve seen many temples seamlessly integrated in the surroundings and we expected that it would be hard to find Shitennoji in the labyrinth of small streets. However, it wasn’t the case; Shitennoji is clearly an important landmark and you can find signs directing to the temple pretty much everywhere in the neighbourhood.
Built in year 593 by Prince Shotoku, a semi-legendary regent of Japan and one of the first supporters of Buddhism, Shitennoji temple was rebuilt multiple times but preserved the original 6th century design. You can find all the architectural traits of later temples in this construction, and it’s truly amazing to see a building how it was imagined and built over 1,400 years ago. The five-storey pagoda alone is an engineering marvel.
The central part of the Shitennoji hosts two large ponds filled with countless turtles. These creatures draw a lot of attention and are especially popular among the youngest visitors of the temple.
Next to the far back wall of the temple complex we found a wall with hundreds of small buddha statues. Each one of them is placed in honour and in memory of a shrine prior.
Alas, we were short on time and we couldn’t stay long enough to learn more about Shitennoji. It’s definitely one of the top architectural and historical attractions of Kansai and it alone worth a trip to Osaka. We continued our trip and took a shinkansen to our next destination — Hiroshima.
