Daibutsu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Daibutsu (大仏 or in traditional orthography 大佛) is a Japanese word meaning literally "Large Buddha" that refers to large statues of the Buddha or one of his various incarnations. In the West, the term is often used to refer to the Kamakura Great Buddha following its popularization in the poem "The Buddha at Kamakura" by Rudyard Kipling, but in Japan, it more typically refers to the Great Buddha of Nara, located in Tōdai-ji, which is a larger statue.

[edit] List of Daibutsu

• Kamakura Great Buddha, 13.35 meters tall
• Tōdai-ji, 14.98 meters tall
• Echizen Great Buddha, 17 meters tall ^[1]
• Gifu Great Buddha, 13.7 meters tall, located in Shōhō-ji, Gifu, Gifu Prefecture^[2]
• Ushiku Daibutsu, in Ibaraki Prefecture, 120 meters tall in total with a 10 meter base, is the world's largest daibutsu and also the world's largest statue.
• Takaoka in Toyama Prefecture has the self-proclaimed "Number 3 Great Buddha of Japan," but it is not actually the third largest. It's 15.85 meters from the ground to the halo, but the statue itself is only about half that height.

• The Daibutsu of Hōkō-ji in Kyoto (16th-20th centuries) was destroyed by a series of earthquakes and fires and has not been rebuilt after the last disaster which happened in the 1970s.
• The Daibutsu of Nihon-ji at Nokogiriyama in Chiba Prefecture, built in 1783 and restored in 1969, is Japan's largest stone carved daibutsu with 31.05 meters tall

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Photographs and information on famous Daibutsu
• New York Public Library Digital Gallery, early photograph of Kamakura Daibutsu from rear
• New York Public Library Digital Gallery, early photograph of Hyōgo Daibutsu