Originally planned as a museum for important items of artistic or historic merit brought from temples and shrines, it has developed a collection of its own—as well as borrowing from private collections and religious institutions when mounting special exhibitions. As one of the major holdings of artifacts and historical art of early Japan, the exhibits cover the period from pre-history through the Edo period. Inasmuch as the collections are extensive, many of the objects in the museum's holdings are rotated; thus, it is not possible to indicate those items currently on view.
The collections include art, religious objects, and items of archeological and historical interest including sculpture, paintings, ceramics and pottery, metalwork, lacquer, toys, dolls of Japan, calligraphy, sutra scrolls (sacred writings), paintings, Buddhist images, and costumes. Chinese works of art are represented as well since they had a major influence on Japanese art and taste in the past. Special exhibitions are mounted in the spring and autumn in the original Meiji-era building. Labels are in Japanese and in English, and a guidebook to the collections (in English) is available in the museum shop. The museum also contains a research library and a photographic laboratory.
When one leaves the Kyoto National Museum and exits on to Shichijo-dori, one should walk to the right (west) to the corner of Yamato-oji-dori (the next cross-street) and turn to the right On Yamato-oji-dori, one will then encounter the end of Japan's medieval period and become acquainted with the intriguing figure of Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-98), the military general and civil ruler of the late 1500s (he ruled from 1585 to 1598).
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who brought peace and prosperity back to a devastated city, was one of the major personalities in the history of Japan and Kyoto. He was honored by the citizens of Kyoto in particular, for Kyoto was a city that had suffered the depredations of war and fire and the privations of starvation and disease, all caused by the country's internecine wars of the previous one hundred years. Hideyoshi's day in the sun was a comparatively brief but glorious one. By 1585 those who opposed him had been conquered and he ruled a pacified nation; by 1598 he was dead, leaving a memorable legacy which the thankful people of Kyoto could not forget. The fourteen years were important ones in Japan's history, and they are especially remembered as the glorious Momoyama period when art flourished, business and commercial enterprises revived, and Japan was at peace.
Hideyoshi is recalled in many places in Kyoto, but in the portion of the city covered in this walk one encounters some of the most memorable reminders of his life: the Hokoji temple, the site of the image of the Buddha which was meant, in a vainglorious moment, to outshine that of the Daibutsu (the Great Buddha image) of Nara and whose memorial bell, which was to herald an era of peace, led instead to the downfall of Hideyoshi's son and the eradication of his line; Mimizuka, the mound that commemorates his brutal wars in Korea; and the Hokoku Shrine, the restored Shinto shrine to his spirit.
HOKO-JI
It is best to begin with what remains of the Hoko-ji. The Hoko-ji is on the east side of Yamato-oji-dori just beyond the Hokoku Shrine whose main entrance faces Shomen-dori, a street heading downhill to the west. The entrance to the Hokoku Shrine should be bypassed, for the Hoko-ji grounds begin at the end of the shrine property. The Hoko-ji temple is open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. There is no entry fee.
The only historic unit extant in the Hokoji, the onetime site of the Great Buddha of Kyoto, is its infamous temple bell. There is no charge to see it, but if you wish to strike the bell with its beam, the attendant may collect a small fee for this privilege. Although the history of the temple is fascinating, other than seeing the bell it is not worth entering the remaining buildings which date from the 1970s after the latest of many fires that have plagued the temple.
The Hokoji was erected by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in part out of his own vanity and in part as a ploy to disarm all but the new warrior class which officially came into being as a result of the codification of rank and status which Hideyoshi began and which the Tokugawa shoguns would formulate definitively after 1600. If one thing need be said, it is that this "pious" act of creating the Hokoji temple was hardly based on religious zeal.
Determined to build a huge image of the Buddha which would outclass the Daibutsu (Great Buddha) of Nara, Hideyoshi boasted that his Great Buddha would be created in five years rather than the twenty years it had taken to build the Daibutsu of the emperor Shomu in the seventh century. The temple grounds, which held Hideyoshi's gigantic image, and its hall covered an area 780 feet from east to west by 822 feet north to south.
Hideyoshi's vassals (the daimyo or lords dependent upon him) were required to furnish the funds and the thousands of workers needed to bring this 160-foot-tall Buddha into being. Originally intended to be cast in bronze, difficulties with the casting led instead to the creation of the image in wood which was then lacquered. The Hondo (Main Hall), built in 1587 to house this gigantic image, stood 222 feet wide by 330 feet long and 200 feet high. The creation of the Buddha image gave rise to the device of disarming the general populace. Many citizens had maintained their own weapons for defensive purposes or for use when impressed into military battles during the Sengoku Jidai (Period of the Warring States, 1467-1568). The armed monks who had also plagued the government before being crushed by Oda Nobunaga, Hideyoshi's predecessor, were also a target. Thus, a government decree ordered the surrender of "any sword, short sword, bows, spears, firearms, or other types of arms." the avowed purpose of this 1585 "Taiko's Sword Hunt" (as the campaign was known, Taiko [His Highness] being the title by which Hideyoshi was known by the public) was to melt down such metals in order to cast the fittings needed to erect the great hall that would house the Buddha at the Hoko-ji.
With the public deprived of arms, according to official pronouncements, the populace would have a double benefit: without arms, there would be less chance of death from armed conflict, and by surrendering their arms for the sake of the Buddha, donors would be granted peace not only in this life but in the next world as well. In the long run, this not only removed the danger of uprisings against the ruling authorities but also emphasized the class distinction between soldiers and farmers, soldiers and merchants. It made the wearing of a sword a badge of rank, a privilege granted only to the samurai. The rigid stratification of society during the following 265 years of Tokugawa rule, after Hideyoshi's demise, was in process.
The Bukko-ji, which stood on the site of Hideyoshi's projected Great Buddha image, was conveniently moved across the river in order to provide sufficient land for the gigantic undertaking. Canals were dug and a new bridge was built, the Gojo-ohashi, the Great Bridge of Fifth Street, to facilitate the delivery of materials to the site. The temple was completed in 1589, with one thousand priests participating in the dedicatory ceremonies. Unhappily, the image was doomed to disaster. In 1596 a great earthquake damaged much of the Kyoto area and the Great Buddha was destroyed. Two years later, Hideyoshi was dead. The question of the successor to Hideyoshi lay open since his intended political heir, his son Hideyori, was only five years old.
The various lords who formed a regents' council had pledged to support Hideyoshi's son as the next political ruler when he came of age. Dissension among them, however, enabled Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616) to gain control of the government by 1603 both by guile and by force. Concerned with creating a new ruling family, he determined to get rid of Hideyori in time. In order to weaken Hideyori financially as the years went by, Ieyasu encouraged him and his mother to melt ten million gold coins from Hideyoshi's estate to obtain the needed funds for a gigantic image which would replace the Great Buddha. For Hideyori's political supporters, this rebuilding of the Great Buddha provided an opportunity to restore the family's flagging political influence. Thus, the rebuilding began in 1603. Unfortunately, a fire in the nearly completed hall destroyed the work already done. Ieyasu convinced Hideyori and his mother once more that the project had to be completed, thereby further sapping the Toyotomi finances.
By 1609 the Buddha had been recreated (in wood), and by 1612 the temple was restored. This second hall was 272 feet long by 167.5 feet deep, and it rose 150 feet into the air. Ninety-two pillars