Qualla: Koa Kannon https://qualla.com/koa-kannon en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:40 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/x/n/4/z/koa-kannon-wp/koa-kannon-cenotaphs-1.jpg Qualla: Koa Kannon https://qualla.com/koa-kannon Koa Kannon: Introduction https://qualla.com/koa-kannon/ Photo credit Abasaa, Public domain. The clay came from the battlefields. In 1940, retired General Iwane Matsui -- former commander of the Shanghai Expeditionary Force during the Second Sino-Japanese War -- gathered soil from the killing fields where Chinese and Japanese soldiers had fallen, including from the vicinity of Nanjing, and shaped it into a statue of Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion. He placed it atop Mount Izu in Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, and dedicated it to the war dead of both nations, consecrating friend and enemy alike. On February 24, 1940, a Jodo Buddhist monk from the great temple of Zojo-ji performed the consecration ceremony before a gathering of dignitaries. Then Matsui built a retreat nearby and climbed the mountain each morning to chant the Kannon Sutra before the statue he had made from the earth that had swallowed so many young men. Eight years later, he would join them -- executed as a Class A war criminal by the International Military Tribunal of the Far East.

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]]> Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/x/n/4/z/koa-kannon-wp/xn4z-koa-kannon-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Koa Kannon: A Temple Unlike Any Other https://qualla.com/koa-kannon/ Photo credit Abasaa, Public domain. Koa Kannon is singular in Japanese Buddhism. Formally registered as the Reihaizan Koa Kannon, it traces its lineage to the Hokke Shu Jin-Monryu, a breakaway sect of Nichiren Buddhism based in Sanjo, Niigata Prefecture, but operates as a fully independent temple -- the only one of...

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]]> Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/x/n/4/z/koa-kannon-wp/xn4z-koa-kannon-a-temple-unlike-any-other.mp3 0:06 2 full Koa Kannon: The Secret Urn https://qualla.com/koa-kannon/ Photo credit Abasaa, Public domain. On December 23, 1948, seven men were hanged at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo. Among them were former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and General Iwane Matsui, the man who had built the very statue on Mount Izu. The American occupation authorities cremated the bodies at Kuboyama Crematorium i...

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]]> Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/x/n/4/z/koa-kannon-wp/xn4z-koa-kannon-the-secret-urn.mp3 0:06 3 full Koa Kannon: Monuments and Martyrs https://qualla.com/koa-kannon/ Photo credit Abasaa, Public domain. The site grew into something far more than Matsui had envisioned. In 1944, while the Pacific War still raged, a second monument was erected: the "Bodhi for the Warriors Who Fell in Battle in the Great Pacific War," honoring all war dead in the Pacific theater. After the enshrinem...

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]]> Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/x/n/4/z/koa-kannon-wp/xn4z-koa-kannon-monuments-and-martyrs.mp3 0:06 4 full Koa Kannon: The Fuse That Fell Short https://qualla.com/koa-kannon/ Photo credit Abasaa, Public domain. On December 12, 1971, the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front, a radical leftist group that viewed the monuments as symbols of Japanese imperialism, attempted to destroy the entire site with explosives. They targeted the Kannon statue, the stone monument of the seven warriors, and t...

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]]> Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/x/n/4/z/koa-kannon-wp/xn4z-koa-kannon-the-fuse-that-fell-short.mp3 0:06 5 full