Construction of Kōtoku-in Temple

Kōtoku-in is a Buddhist temple of the Jōdo sect in Kamakura, which was the seat of the shogunate in medieval Japan. It is famous for its Great Buddha, or Daibutsu, a bronze statue of Amida Buddha about thirteen meters tall, cast in the thirteenth century. An earlier wooden statue was destroyed by a storm, and the bronze one replaced it. The statue was originally housed in a large hall, but the building was washed away by a tsunami in the late fifteenth century, and since then the Buddha has sat in the open air. It is the second-tallest bronze Buddha in Japan, after the one at Tōdai-ji in Nara, and the figure has withstood earthquakes and typhoons for centuries.

Open on the timeline