This morning, I had a chance to attend a lecture titled as "How to see Statues of Buddha" made by Mr. M, a class mate. He is a medical doctor. He is a civilian researcher of statues of Buddha, especially those made by Japanese artists. He looked around more than 600 statues in Japan. He made use of every moment to study history of every statue in Japan and tried to grasp the whole history of Buddha statues systematically. His lectures are divided into three parts. Today's lecture is its second part. He talked about statues of Nyorai and Bosatsu (Disciples of Buddha.)
I realized first time that the old Japanese culture had been arts of Buddha statues since the arrival of Buddhism from China in the sixth century. The statues of Buddha are exhibited at Japan Arts Exhibitions at national museum in Ueno. They are also displayed at Japanese Arts Exhibitions held at Metropolitan Museum, or Boston Arts Museum. In other words, the only Japanese arts which can be displayed is statues of Buddha, except few Japanese pictures and calligraphies. It was a regret to me that I became too old without having any chance for learning about Buddha statues at schools or at social education. If I had some knowledge on them twenty years ago, I might have had a different life.