Arriving at the above golden splendour was an unexpected delight during a visit to my homestay family in Saitama prefecture over the weekend. The Shodensan temple in the town of Menuma is hidden smack bang in the middle of farming land, and the surrounding flat fields with their cultivated rows of leeks (see picture on right) and nearby farmhouses looked way too quiet to have such an ornate temple sheltering in its midst. Otosan (my host father), who has resided all of his eighty-six years in a town less than twenty kilometres away, mentioned several times that this was his first time to visit the area. Part of the reason Shodensan temple has attracted little attention during Otosan's lifetime is because its gaudy, glittering facade only re-emerged in the twenty-first century. For many years, the intricate wooden carvings had been untended and time had chipped away the wooden surface, causing the paint to crack and flake. Their condition deteriorated to a perilous state when barely in the nick of time restoration efforts commenced.
After seven years and 1.3 billion yen (which is more than 13 million in AUD), the overhaul was complete in 2011. The project was funded with money allocated by the government and with donations from the private sector. I can imagine there was a group of ardently concerned citizens who advocated for these repairs to be undertaken. Their hard work was rewarded as it was designated a kokuho (National Treasure) by the Japanese government the following year. This status is given to items with special historical or artistic significance and will ensure the temple is well-looked after in perpetuity (see here for more about). There is also a news article here which explains in more detail about the restoration processes.
That the temple was rescued through grass-roots efforts also seems quite appropriate as I discovered that the building of the temple had originally been sponsored piecemeal with contributions from the local people over a quarter of a century period from 1735 until its final completion in 1760. An earlier structure had been destroyed in a fire in 1670. And the actual site itself has been in use as a temple from an even earlier era as it was established by a military leader called Saito Sanemori in 1179. It is quite amazing to be in a place that has served a sacred function for more than eight hundred years.
When we drew near to the temple, there was a volunteer guide explaining the symbolism of the different carvings. The fine craftsmanship and detail of the carvings immediately stands out as worthy of high praise indeed. These works were conducted by artisans who may well have honed their skills first on the very famous temples of Nikko which are just a hop, skip and a jump away. I was finding it very interesting to look at artworks that convey a narrative (rare in Japanese temples) when the guide surprised me by referring to foreigners in her spiel. Apparently when she informs foreigners, "It's gold." they respond, "I want it!". I was the only foreigner in the crowd and I don't think she noticed me in the crowd. Not sure why she felt this was worth mentioning twice. My best conclusion is that she was proud to be the custodian of such precious objects and this is how she conveys its value. It was certainly weird to witness her recounting it to her fellow country people.
I could not really follow her explantion and while I noticed she spent considerable time discussing some carvings of elephants, the significance did not really register until I was doing some Internet fact-checking later. This is when I read that the temple was founded by an escoteric Buddhist Shingon-sect and is dedicated to the guardian god Kangi Jizaiten who has a human body with an elephant head (although I did not see him in this form at Menuma, only the regular elephants). "Oh, it's Ganesh" I exclaimed to myself. He is familiar to me from my time in Poona, India where I saw many representations of him. I never knew he was a cross-over god with a Japanese strand to his story. In India we had seen a giant Buddha statue in the Ellora Caves from the 12 century, and it was intriguing to now be in Japan and see where a Hindu god has been adopted into the local pantheon.
This is what I like so much about history (and religion, too). How the separate strands overlap and combine in such disparate scenarios. How old customs and rituals reinvent themselves anew. And how our personal stories help us to make sense of our place in our surroundings.
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