Buddhism in Japan

For but one summer in 1975, this rural suburb became a busy tourist spot when a local girl claimed to have seen ghostly faces on an old stele.

Feast your eyes on the centuries-old statues of the judges of hell.

A rare public effigy of “the Embracing Kangiten,” the erotic Japanese equivalent of Hindu god Ganesha.

The alleged site of the months-long imprisonment of a Japanese prince.

All that remains of Okinawa's royal temple are a restored gateway and a tall banyan tree.

An eclectic temple with Chinese architecture, Korean lion-dogs, an Indian god and a legendary 700-year-old tree.

A relatively young Buddhist temple on hilltop, dedicated to a statue relocated from Mount Atago.

A mountaintop shrine-temple guarded by a horde of half-demon priests.

Home to 800-year-old zen basin, a 400-year-old pilgrim’s path, and a century-old industrial grotto.

Home to a legend of the supernatural raccoon dog, a rare wooden structure of Edo, and witnesses of the Tokyo bombings.

This lesser-visited gallery in a corner of the Tokyo National Museum complex is an architectural beauty dedicated to the ancient treasures of Hōryū-ji.

An eerie cluster of medieval cave-like tombs carved out of a cliff, hidden in a historic mountain pass.

A group of medieval rock-cut Buddhist statues created to save people from the volcanic hell that surrounds them.

A network of ancient tunnels and vaulted chambers with mystical Buddhist reliefs, built for ascetic training.

Hundreds of statues of Buddha’s disciples meditating, napping, sneezing, and picking their noses.

A bizarre statue of a Buddhist goddess made from 20,000 insects.