Hongan-ji Temple at Asakusa in Edo (Tôto Asakusa hongan-ji)

Catalog note / 解説

Asakusa was the most populous district in Edo in Hokusai’s time. Its streets were crowded with stores where busy merchants and craftsmen lived and vigorously plied their trades. One of the district’s landmarks was the enormous Asakusa Honganji Temple, built in 1657, which belonged to a branch of Kyoto Higashi Honganji, the headquarters of Buddhism’s Eastern School of the Pure Land (Jödo) sect. Begun in the Late Heian period (late eleventh century), the Pure Land sect quickly gained a large following. It had one simple, compassionate teaching – that enlightenment (salvation) could be attained not through the study of sutras or observation of complicated rituals, as required in other sects, b…