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You are in the S.E. part of the largest commercial city in Central Japan. Osaka is famous for its manufactures and trade-it has been called the Chicago of Japan-yet here as everywhere in the Land of the Rising Sun you find great areas of the most desirable land given to the temples. Over one hundred acres are included in these particular temple grounds and forty different buildings are standing in various parts of the park; some are for prayers, some for the hearing of sermons, some for the enshrining of relics and the storage of sacred objects of less importance-some are for the swellings of the priests and temple attendants.

This is a very good chance to see thoroughly characteristic temple architecture. The buildings are of unpainted wood, "weathered" into beautiful browns and grays. Those carved panels over the sliding window-shutters are exquisitely carved with figures of trees, birds, animals, fantastic dragons and the like, all having symbolic significance for Japanese eyes. The graceful upward curve of each roof-line is typically Japanese.

The pagoda is 147 feet high and Osaka people, accustomed mainly to one-story houses, consider its dimensions something wonderful. They are in fact made possible in this land of earthquakes only by means of an exceedingly clever device. A huge pendulum made of wooden beams bound together, and weighing half as must as the rest of the structure, hangs suspended inside from the center of the roof. When the disintegrating jar and roll of an earthquake reach the ground here, the pendulum slowly swings to balance its disturbance of equilibrium and then swings back, preventing the tower from falling.

(See Scherer's "Japan Today" for sermons preached by Buddhist priests; read also Scidmore's "Jinrikisha Days in Japan," etc.)

From Notes of Travel, No. 9, cpyright, 1904, by Underwood & Underwood.


Stately splendeur du Temple Tennoji, Osaka, Japan.
Imposante splendeur de Temple Tenoji, Osaka, Japon.
Sterrliche bracht des Tennoji Tempels, Osaka, Japan.
Imponente esplendor del Templo Tennoji, Osaka, Japón.
Tennoji-templets státliga prakt, Osaka, Japan.
Величественный храм Храма Тенноджи, Осака, Япония.
Великолѣпный храмъ теннози въ Осакѣ, Японія.