Persimmon Wind: A Martial Artist's Journey in Japan by Dave Lowry

Author:Dave Lowry [Lowry, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781890536091
Publisher: Koryu Books
Published: 2005-09-07T07:00:00+00:00

“Hachiman?” I asked.

“Yes, he is a Buddhist deity. The god of war. Have you heard of him?”

I nodded. Asking a bugeisha if he knows of Hachiman is like asking an Irish Catholic if he knows of St. Patrick.

“We’ll be sure to go see the shrine,” I said.

The bus was packed. We stood. Visitors come to Nara in every season, drawn to its remarkable collection of historical sites, specifically to its sacred real estate. If the cathedral at Chartes, Westminster Abbey, Angkor Wat, and the churches and synagogues of Seville, Moscow, and half a dozen European cities were all stuck in an area a bit more than twice the size of New York’s Central Park, the result would approximate Nara. The temples and shrines I glimpsed, ducking down and looking out the bus windows, were too many to count in the fifteen-minute ride we took through Nara Park. Directional signs pointed to dozens more.

The city of Nara became the religious center of Japan in the eighth century. That’s when Chinese priests came there at the invitation of Emperor Shomu.

The fortunes of Nara rose and fell across those early centuries, always wedded to the fate of Buddhism. When a government, emperor, or military leader embraced the religion or promoted it for one reason or another, the city and its shrines prospered. Enormous sums were spent constructing temples of fabulous design and in sizes that staggered imaginations. When a ruler or regime felt a threat from the political influences of Buddhism, those same holy structures were promptly razed. Different sects of the faith had their own moments of glory and dissolution, official blessings and condemnation as well: the Tendai, the Jodo, the Nichiren — all left their architectural mark on Nara. Political authority eventually shifted north to Kyoto, then to Edo in the east. But the shrines and temples remained. Today, especially in the older half of the city, one is rarely out of sight of one or another of them.

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