Visit to Buddhist Sculpture Studio [8月 19,2013 ]

On July 23 the students of the Practical Japanese Course visited a Buddhist sculpture studio, “Seizan-sha,” in Shiga prefecture. Mr. Watanabe Seizan, the Great Buddhist sculptor of the studio, gave us various interesting explanations about making and repairing Buddhist statues and showed us demonstrations of it. He was making a Kannon (Kuan Yin) statue, “Ayumi Kannon,” using lumbers of pine trees that were thrown down by the tsunami of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. Every student chiselled it a little bit and was given a piece chiselled off as a charm for them.