The Hyogo Daibutsu is an 11-metre seated Vairocana in bronze — 18 metres counting the lotus pedestal and base, and about 60 tonnes — standing in the precinct of Nofuku-ji, a Tendai temple in Kobe's Hyogo ward. It is the second statue of that name. The first was raised in May 1891, paid for by the merchant Nanjo Sobei and subscribed across every Buddhist school, at a moment when the new Meiji government's separation of Buddhism and Shinto had left Japanese Buddhism reeling; it became famous enough to be counted with Nara and Kamakura as one of the three great Buddhas of Japan. It was taken apart in May 1944 under the wartime metal collection order. The priest of the day recovered and kept fragments of it, and when the present statue was dedicated on 9 May 1991 those fragments were melted into it, making the two statues one. The dedication fell exactly one hundred years and one day after the first statue's own eye-opening. The temple around it is older than either: it dates itself to the return of Saicho from Tang China in 804, and it holds the mausoleum of Taira no Kiyomori, who moved the capital here in 1180.

Best season

Year-round

Crowd level

Hidden gem

Admission

No admission charge — the Daibutsu stands in the open precinct and OpenStreetMap records the temple as fee=no. The temple office (jimusho/nokyosho) is staffed 10:00–16:00, which is the only published time window; the statue itself is not behind a ticket gate.

Nearest station

Chuo-ichiba-mae Station (Kobe Municipal Subway Kaigan Line)

Website

nofukuji.jp

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