The artist who executed it was Goyemon Ono of Yanamura of Kadzusa province.
Putting aside the question who were Ono and Itano no Tsubone, the singnificant point is that it was created by a thousand people whose religious longing and hope were fulfilled in this Daibutsu. It is not our imagination alone to think that the statue always lives as it is the real force of prayer; when we see it, we build the most musical relation one with another at once, because we forget ourselves in one soul and body, we might say, in one sound and one colour, perfectly wedded with it. After all, it is nothing but our own emotion and yearning personified.
I believe that it might not have been so great an art as it is, if it had been made in our day, mainly because it would express too delicate details; and the temple light from the opening of the doors, when it used to stand within, must have often played with it unjustly. But it became a great art when the storm and tidal waves destroyed the temple and washed the statue in 1355 and again in 1526, and left it without cover ever since, with the rus-
