Two sculptors are creating a Buddhist statue for a temple that lost its main hall and about 700 parishioners in the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and is in need of an emotional lift.
Two sculptors are creating a Buddhist statue for a temple that lost its main hall and about 700 parishioners in the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and is in need of an emotional lift.
Gizan Kato, 43, and Yozan Miura, 38, hope to dedicate the 1.6-meter-tall image of the seated Buddha to the Koganji temple in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, within three years.
“The new principal Buddhist image will certainly give emotional support to local residents,” chief priest Ryokan Ogayu, 53, said. “Some survivors, grieving over the loss of their relatives, have shut themselves up in temporary housing.”
Some 100 residents evacuated to the temple immediately after the earthquake, with 30 killed by the subsequent tsunami. A fire that followed destroyed the main hall and other facilities.
About 700 parishioners died in the disasters. Ogayu’s father and son remain missing.
Kato, of Shiraoka, Saitama Prefecture, decided to dedicate Buddhist statues after learning that many temples were damaged by the tsunami.
He launched a project called Enishi (bond) in July and called for support on Twitter and by other means. More than 100 people have offered help.
One of them was Miura, of Otsu, who lost many relatives in the March 11 disaster. The tsunami swept away the home of the parents of his father and that of the parents of his mother, both in Miyagi Prefecture.
“I do not have much experience as a sculptor specializing in Buddhist statues, but I want to do what I can,” Miura said.
Tetsujo Otani, 48, senior priest of Yakushiji temple in Nara, learned about Kato’s project, consulted with Buddhist officials in the Tohoku region and selected Koganji as the recipient of the new Buddhist image.
Kato and Miura will take turns carving the statue out of a block of “hinoki” Japanese cypress. Newspaper clippings and photographs of the disaster will be stored in the statue and its foundation.
“I want to create a Buddhist statue, which, like 1,000 paper cranes, brings together the prayers of many people,” Kato said.