Buddhism in Japan

This compact temple is filled with garlands of colorful balls that represent restrained monkeys.

A giant statue of the Buddhist goddess of mercy watches over the town of Ōfuna.

An old woman cured cholera in the 1820s and now her grave is said to be the city’s most cursed object.

In the former treasury of a popular temple, a rare sculptural depiction of Kannon’s diverse avatars.

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.