required field must not be left blank: 2010

Do not be fooled by its metallurgic status: the bronze statue of Amida Buddha, at 13.35m tall, is the second largest bronze Buddha in Japan.

First cast in 1252 inside Kotokuin temple hall (long since destroyed), the Buddha now sits outside come rain or shine, silently watching as throngs of tourists have their pictures taken with him. Most of them seem underwhelmed - perhaps they have seen his taller sibling at Nara - but all this is soon forgotten amidst the souvenirs and snacks provided in abundance at the adjacent stores.

For those that stick around, though, a great treat is in store. One lap is enough to open your eyes to one of the sculpture's more unusual features: a pair of fenestrations, complete with folding shutters, which have been cut into the poor fellow's back. But before you have the chance to grapple with the significance of this thoracic augmentation, your eyes have wandered to the end of a snaking queue. Having following it along its length, you note it disappears inside the base of the sculpture. Now this is unexpected, for anyone seems to be able to enter the sacrosanct body of Amida, through what is surely the least holy of holes, provided you part with a bit of pocket change.

Without wanting to overly emphasise the sexual connotations of such a penetration, it is hard to come away not marvelling at the sensuality and bodiliness of the sculpture from within. The dim, damp, echoey space immediately evokes images of Jonah's adventure inside the whale. As an unreadable, amorphous, moulded (even ribbed) space, the interior seems much akin to parts of a digestive system, and on a warm summer's day, the bronze shell quickly absorbs the heat, turning the statue into an efficient kiln, or digestive chamber. More than just re-radiating, however, the solar heat absorbed by this cast-metal skin renders it warm to the touch, eerily pleasurable even. As for the smell, wet and heavy in the air, it is, thankfully, not at all unpleasant.

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