Daibutsu or Great Buddha at Kamakura

Photograph of the Great Buddha (Daibutsu) statue at the Kōtoku-in temple in Kamakura, Japan, circa 1945-1952.

Typed caption in margin: "Daibutsu or Great Buddha at Kamakura."

Typed caption on verso: "The world-famed Buddha, known as Dai-Butsu, is located at Kamakura, near Yokohama. The silently eloquent bronze Dia-Butsu, the most impressive of its kind in the world, has an expression and pose which suggest a philosophical majesty, the result of a wisdom attained through the ages, as if all thoughts and all things that ever existed were old thought and old thing to this Buddha. In the perfect repose and passionless calm that so truly express the root idea of Buddhist doctrines, this colossal Buddha has for 684 years sat on his stone pedastal [pedestal] among the trees. The peaceful serenity of the face, the appraising scrutiny of the half-closed, all-seeing eyes, and the firmly closed mouth suggest a sublimity equalled [equaled] by no other statue. The image was originally enclosed in a large building which was damaged by a severe storm in 1369 and was finally carried away by the great tidal wave of 1494, since which time the figure has remained in the open. The image is hollow and can be ascended by means of a spiral staircase up to the shoulders."