Takatori, Nara - Walking through the vast areas on the mountainside of Mount Takatori, you will see many eye-related things: ema votive tablets with a large "me” (eye) hiragana character written on each one, and the Megane Kuyo Kannon (Buddhist deity of mercy) statue to which people dedicate their old glasses.
Tsubosakadera temple in Takatori, Nara Prefecture, is known as a place where people can come to pray for eye diseases to be cured. Its main object of worship is a statue of the 11-faced, thousand-armed Kannon Bodhisattva - also called the Kannon of the Eyes - as praying to the statue is believed to be effective in curing eye diseases.
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4.7-meter wide frames
A large and especially striking pair of wooden glasses frames without lenses is placed in front of the three-story pagoda. The frames, measuring 4.
7 meters wide and 1.8 meters high, were made in 1989 to fit the face of the 20-meter-tall stone Kannon statue on the temple grounds.
Glasses are an indispensable tool for people with poor eyesight.
The aim of the frames is to encourage worshippers to rediscover the importance of the tool, experience the compassion of Kannon, the deity of mercy, and cultivate gratitude for all things.
The wooden object is only on public display from October to December.
"The frames are made of wood, so they rot during the wet season,” said Shoshin Kita, 55, an administrative official at the temple.
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