Millennium Guardians The Buddhist Statues of Kyoto

Kyoto is a treasure house of Buddhist statuary. The many statues there include 37 designated national treasures and 416 important cultural properties, second only in number to those of Nara. Jizo, the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, is especially closely entwined with the people's lives in Kyoto and small roadside shrines housing Jizo statues can be seen all over the city. Local residents sweep in front of the shrines each morning and it is only normal here for people to pause and hold their hands together in prayer as they pass by on their way to school or work. The city has grown with the images and those images provide the people with precious moments of tranquility. This is the story of how much the statues to which they pray mean in the daily lives of Kyoto people.