Dōmyōji Temple

Domyoji is one of the few Buddhist convents still operating in Japan, and its grounds hold a particularly compelling object: a roughly one-meter Kannon statue carved from a single piece of Japanese cypress, believed to have been made by the scholar-poet Sugawara no Michizane in the ninth century. The figure wears a crown of ten Kannon incarnations, each representing a step on the bodhisattva's path, topped by the head of Amida Buddha at full enlightenment. The statue is displayed on the 18th and 25th of each month. Some temple buildings were relocated here from nearby Domyoji Tenmangu Shrine after the 1868 law separating Buddhism and Shinto.