Kyoto Jizo Obon Shrine Art Deco

京都地蔵お盆

South of JR Enmachi Station on a side street to the east of Nishioji Dori is an Art Deco Jizo Obon shrine.

The small shrines are sprinkled throughout Kyoto and surely number in the thousands.

The shrines, known as Jizo, are said to protect the children of the area.

According to writer Mark Schumacher, "Jizo works to ease the suffering and shorten the sentence of those serving time in hell, to deliver the faithful into Amida's western paradise (where inhabitants are no longer trapped in the six states of desire and karmic rebirth), and to answer the prayers of the living for health, success, children, and all manner of petitions."

Within is a stone Jizo, which is the centerpiece of the shrine.

It is brought out once a year, during the Jizo obon festival in August.

Most Jizo shrines have a fairly similar look; this one was jarring but attractive in its allusion to 1930s design. The tiles in particular are unusual.

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Jizo 0bon

Jizobon Nijo Area

地蔵盆二条城三条会

Kyoto is dotted with mini-temples, often tucked into space between buildings.

The structures house Jizo-san, a bodhisattva worshipped in East Asian Buddhism.

The Jizo is usually depicted as a Buddhist monk, and is believed to protect children.

The small statues are found throughout Japan.

In Kyoto, in particular, these statues are ubiquitous. Following the annual Bon Festival - which celebrates the once a year return of one's departed ancestors in August - Kyoto neighborhoods come alive with Jizobon festivals.

These festival are for children. Games and gifts mix with song and religious undertones.

The Jizo pictured here will be taken out of the temple on that day and set up on a temporary altar that will be the centerpiece of a two-day festival. Once finished, the Jizo is returned to the temple for another year.

What caught our eye were the tiles on the outside of the structure, giving it the feel of the interior of a public bath.

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Jizo Statue Kumogahata Kyoto

地蔵さん雲ヶ畑京都

The small statuettes sprinkled throughout Japan - an in particular, in Kyoto - are known as Jizo, or Jizo-san.

Jizo is a Bodhisattva (in Japanese: Bosatsu): that is, one who "achieves enlightenment but postpones Buddhahood until all can be saved." The "ji" (地) means earth, and the "zo" (蔵) is womb.

These mini-Buddha are beloved and thought to ease suffering.

This one sits in a cemetery in Kumogahata, northern Kyoto.

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