Qualla: Gifu Great Buddha: The Giant Built from Bamboo, Scripture, and Thirty-Eight Years of Faith

Gifu Great Buddha: The Giant Built from Bamboo, Scripture, and Thirty-Eight Years of Faith: Introduction

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Most great Buddha statues in Japan are cast in bronze. The one in Gifu is built from a ginkgo tree, bamboo lattice, clay, Buddhist scriptures, lacquer, and gold leaf. It took thirty-eight years to finish. The priest who conceived it never lived to see it completed. When Ichyuu, the 11th head priest of Kinpouzan Shōhō-ji temple, began the project around 1790, he was responding to a string of devastating earthquakes and famines that had shaken the region. He believed a great Buddha could bring spiritual protection to the people of Gifu. Ichyuu died in 1815 with the statue still unfinished. His successor, Priest Kohshuu, carried the work forward for another seventeen years, finally completing the Gifu Daibutsu in April 1832. It stands 13.63 meters tall inside a wooden hall, serene and golden, built on faith and bamboo.

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Image: Public domain

Gifu Great Buddha: The Giant Built from Bamboo, Scripture, and Thirty-Eight Years of Faith: A Buddha Unlike Any Other

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Weavehole at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0. The construction method makes the Gifu Great Buddha unique among Japan's monumental Buddhist statues. Workers began by shaping a central pillar from ginkgo wood, 1.8 meters in circumference, strong enough to bear the weight of the massive figure above. Around this core they wove ...

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Image: Weavehole at English Wikipedia | CC BY 3.0

Gifu Great Buddha: The Giant Built from Bamboo, Scripture, and Thirty-Eight Years of Faith: Born from Disaster

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 先従隗始, CC0. The late eighteenth century was a brutal stretch for central Japan. Earthquakes cracked foundations, crop failures brought famine, and communities across the region struggled to recover. Priest Ichyuu watched his congregation suffer and conceived the Great Buddha as both a spirit...

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Image: 先従隗始 | CC0

Gifu Great Buddha: The Giant Built from Bamboo, Scripture, and Thirty-Eight Years of Faith: The Three Great Buddhas

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 663highland, CC BY 2.5. Japan traditionally counts three great Buddha statues as its most revered: the bronze Daibutsu at Tōdai-ji in Nara, the outdoor bronze at Kōtoku-in in Kamakura, and -- depending on which list you follow -- either the Gifu Great Buddha or the Takaoka Daibutsu in Toyama Prefecture ...

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Image: 663highland | CC BY 2.5

Gifu Great Buddha: The Giant Built from Bamboo, Scripture, and Thirty-Eight Years of Faith: Scripture Made Flesh

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 杉山宣嗣, CC BY-SA 4.0. The most remarkable detail of the Gifu Great Buddha is invisible to the eye. Beneath the lacquer and gold leaf, Buddhist scriptures are physically embedded in the statue's surface. This was not decoration -- it was theology made material. In Buddhist tradition, sacred texts carry...

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Image: 杉山宣嗣 | CC BY-SA 4.0