The Great Buddha, Kamagaya Daibutsu, Located In Kamagaya City, Chiba Prefecture Royalty-Free Stock Photo

It is a cast bronze statue of Sakyamuni Buddha, 1.80 meters high and 2.30 meters including the pedestal. It is said to be the smallest Buddha statue in Japan other than stone statues. It is located about a minute's walk from the north exit of Kamagaya Daibutsu Station on the Shin Keisei Electric Railway Line and the Kamagaya Office of the Funabashi Shin Keisei Bus Company. In November 1776, Okuniya Fukuda Bunemon, a resident of Kamagaya-juku, had the foundry craftsman Takawa Shuzen of Kanda, Edo, build it to pray for the repose of the souls of his ancestors. Bunemon, who was quite a showy person, laid out Ryukyu mats for several hundred meters from the front of his house to the site of the Great Buddha, and entertained monks and other guests. It is said that at the time of the opening of the statue, he invited about 50 monks and had Yaozen, a high-class restaurant in Edo, prepare food for 300 people, and sang and played Tsuboni ni shirogane, ohira ni nai gold, saucer ni koban de toshimasu (White gold in a jar, gold in a flatiron, and koban in a plate). The temple is revered by the local residents, and overcame the movement to abolish Buddhism during the Meiji period (1868-1912), and was even protected during the Pacific War when the government refused to offer metals to the government.