Wooden Statues of Yakushi Nyorai and His Two Attendants

A Tenth-Century Medicine Buddha, Carried Down a Mountain

Inside the main hall of Daigo-ji's Reihōkan museum, a seated Medicine Buddha rises to 177 centimeters, its head noticeably broad and its shoulders thick. The left hand cradles a medicine jar shaped like a small gourd, a form favored by sculptors of the tenth century. Behind the figure, six miniature Buddhas cling to the flame-shaped halo; counted together with the central image, they make up the Seven Healing Buddhas described in a sutra recited for the protection of the realm. Two standing bodhisattvas keep the Buddha company: Nikkō, the Bodhisattva of Sunlight, on one side, and Gakkō, the Bodhisattva of Moonlight, on the other. The three figures are registered together as a National Treasure under the name Wooden Yakushi Nyorai and Two Attendant Statues.

Where the Triad Came From

The statues belong to Daigo-ji, a mountain temple founded in 874 by the monk Shōbō, a grand-disciple of Kūkai. Shōbō climbed Mount Kasatori southeast of the capital and built the first hermitage near a spring that the temple still draws on today. The Healing Buddha Hall, the Yakushidō, went up at the temple's upper precinct by the wish of Emperor Daigo. Shōbō began the project but died in 909, and his disciples finished it; tradition places the completion of the triad around 913. Temple records credit the carving to Eri, a sculptor-monk trained under Shōbō who oversaw what amounted to a workshop of image-makers.

Why It Is a National Treasure

Art historians treat this Yakushi as a yardstick for tenth-century sculpture. The broad head and dense, grounded body still carry the gravity of the earlier Jōgan manner, while the shallow, evenly spaced folds of the robe show the gentler native style, the wayō, settling in over the course of the century. The gourd-shaped jar and the seven-Buddha halo let a viewer read the doctrine and devotion of the period directly off the wood. The triad was first placed under state protection in 1902 and raised to National Treasure rank in 1953 under the present cultural-properties law. (The Agency for Cultural Affairs database records the National Treasure date as 14 November 1953, while the temple's own catalogue lists 14 February of that year.)

What to Look For

Stand close and the contrast between the three figures becomes the point. The Buddha is heavy and still. Nikkō and Gakkō, at 120 and 121 centimeters, are slightly under life-size and far lighter in feeling: smaller faces, calmer expressions, jewelry at the chest and creases in the drapery cut with patient care. The single block of kaya wood that forms each core has been finished in lacquer and gold leaf. Look for the six small Buddhas riding the halo, each well under a foot tall, and for the rounded gourd of the medicine jar in the Buddha's lowered left hand.

The Descent of 2001

Until 2001 the triad sat where it was made, in the Yakushidō high on the ridge at Kami-Daigo, the temple's upper precinct. That year the Reihōkan added a large display room, and the figures were brought down for safer keeping. The mountain path is steep and largely unpaved, so machinery was out of the question. The near-1.8-meter Buddha came down by hand, a job that took about twenty people. The three figures now stand at Lower Daigo, much easier to reach than their old home on the slope.

How to See It, and What Else Is Nearby

The triad is shown in the Reihōkan museum at Lower Daigo. The museum rotates its holdings and runs themed exhibitions in spring and autumn, so the figures are not always on view; check the temple's schedule before planning a trip around them. Normal admission to the Reihōkan runs about 600 yen for adults.

Daigo-ji rewards a half-day on foot. The Sanbōin sub-temple keeps a garden laid out around Toyotomi Hideyoshi's famous cherry-viewing party of 1598. The five-story pagoda, finished in 951, is the oldest wooden building in Kyoto Prefecture. Some 700 cherry trees fill the grounds in early April, and the whole complex was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1994. The original Yakushidō still stands at Kami-Daigo, an hour or more up the slope, though the trail is sometimes closed for safety; confirm access before climbing. Daigo-ji is about a ten-minute walk from Daigo Station on the Kyoto Municipal Subway Tōzai Line.