Highlights of the exhibition include 16 "national treasures of Japan" from the temple, which Japanese law only allows to be taken abroad in exceptional circumstances.

Japanese treasures, some of which have been kept in the innermost recesses of a Japanese temple for 1,000 years or more, have arrived in a small town in Germany.

Last week, the temple treasure of the holy mountain of Daigo-ji went on display at the Bundeskunsthalle, the federal art gallery in the former German capital, Bonn.

The show, which carries the subtitle "The hidden side of Buddhism in Japan," took seven long years to organize and bring to Germany.

The scrolls and other calligraphic art, mandalas on silk and various cultic objects spanning a millennium were flown 10,000 kilometers away under careful security.

All 240 items come from Daigo-ji in the mountains outside the former Japanese imperial capital, Kyoto. Daigo-ji is one of the historic monuments of ancient Kyoto, which were collectively recognized by UNESCO in 1994 as a World Heritage Site.

A blessing

Abbot Junna Nakada told reporters in Bonn that the temple owned 150,000 artistic objects and ritual items, explaining that it had taken 100 years just to catalogue them and to conserve the 10,000 most valuable items for posterity.

The abbot, accompanied by four monks, blessed and inaugurated the exhibition with a traditional Buddhist ceremony on Friday. The exhibition, perhaps never to be repeated, will remain open till Aug. 24 and will not be seen in any other German city.
Highlights of the exhibition include 16 "national treasures of Japan" from the temple. Japanese law only allows them to be taken abroad in exceptional circumstances.

They include the Five Great Kings of Knowledge -- rather frightening-looking figures on huge hanging scrolls that glower down on the observer. The scrolls were used in ceremonies to seek divine protection against disasters.

The mandalas on silk are finely drawn summaries of Buddhist belief, interspersed with hundreds of Japanese characters and tiny figures of saints. Some of the items shown are older than Daigo-ji itself, which was begun in the year 874 of the western era.

These very ancient items include 9th-century sculptures of the Buddha standing on lotus flowers. The carving is so fine that most visitors will wish they had bought a magnifying glass with them to see it properly.

A millennium

One of the oldest group of figures in Japanese sculpture is also in the show. The faces in wood scowl down at the visitor.

A life-sized sitting Buddha shows signs of its 1,000 or more years, with woodworm holes and other injuries.

Other items from one of Japan's most ancient monasteries include wooden chests, lacquered boxes, gilded figures in bronze and larger paintings that are still part of the temple decoration. Pilgrims continue to make their way to Daigo-ji.

The exhibition also aims to explain Buddhist beliefs to Germans, the curator, Tomoe Steineck, said.

Unique

Germany is accustomed to outstanding and sensational art shows but the Bundeskunsthalle event is genuinely spectacular and unique.

Visitors must however put up with a little inconvenience.

The items on show are highly sensitive to radiation and can only be placed under exhibition lighting for a few weeks at a time, so the treasures will be shown in stages, explained Hiroyuki Shimatani of the Tokyo National Museum.

In the first stage, only 100 items will be on display and will be replaced by others in June and July. To see everything, the art lover must come to the Bundeskunsthalle more than once.

DPA with Expatica