Yesterday Ian and I visited Temples #11, #12, and #13. The weather was fantastic and we had a wonderful time. However, I will save my comments and pictures until after I finish posting about our trip to Temples #6 and #7.
When I stopped my last post, Ian and I were walking through the temple grounds at Zuiganji. They are quite extensive and we had to travel a long way to get out to the road that would take us to the next temple. Today I again have little to say so I will let the pictures speak for themselves. All the the statues and stelae have both a surface meaning - they represent some personage for the Buddhist pantheon - and an esoteric meaning related to some aspect of Buddhism. I know only a little about this so I will keep my mouth shut, so to speak, to avoid saying something outrageously wrong.
The next picture is a good example of the things I do not know. There two kanji (Chinese) characters on this stele. The top character is pronounced unagi or man, a particular kind of eel which is eaten with delight by the Japanese. The bottom character is tsuka or chou and means a mound, hillock or tumulus. There are countless ways to interpret this. I guess the only way to be sure would be to ask one of the priest who reside in the temple, but they are generally not available for such things, unless of course you have an introduction or lots of money.
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