Japan and the Japanese

382 JAPAN. A. D. 17751776.
five, one behind the other, and all visible at the same time, each
with its twenty hands. On the hands and heads of all thcf-e are
placed smaller idols, to the number of forty or more ; so that the
whole number, thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three,
according to the estimate of the Japanese, does not appear exag
gerated.
Klaproth* gives some curious details as to these temples, derived
from a Japanese Guide Book, such as is sold to visitants. The
dimensions of the temple and of the image of Daibods, or the great
13uddha, are given with great minuteness. The body is seventyseven
feet five and one fourth inches high (Rhineland measure), and
the entire statue with the lotus, eighty-nine feet eight and three
fourths inches. The head of the colossus protrudes through the
roof of the saloon.t
At a little distance is a chapel called Mi?nifsuka, or " tomb of
ears," in which arc buried the ears and noses of the Coreans who
fell in the war carried on against them by Taiko-Sama, who had
them salted and conveyed to Japan. The grand portico of the
external wall of the is temple called Ni-wo-mon, "gate of the two
kings." On entering this vast portico, which is eighty-three and
one half feet high, on each side appears a colossal
figure twentytwo
feet in
height, representing the two celestial
kings, Awoon and
Jugo, the usual porters at the Buddhist temples. Another edifice
placed before the apartment of the great Buddha, contains the
largest
bell known in the world. It is seventeen feet two and one*
half inches high, and weighs one million seven hundred thousand
Japanese pounds (katties), equal to two millions sixty-six thousand
pounds English. Its weight is consequently five times greater than
the great bell at Moscow. If this is the same bell described by
Kiimpfer, here is a remarkable discrepancy.
* Jlnnalx des Empereurs du Japan, p. 405, note, and in the Asiatic
Journal for Sept. 1831.
t The history of this image, derived from the same source, is given in a
note on p. 150. The roof of the temple is supported on ninety-' wo columns,
each upwards of six feet in diameter.