Kōtoku-in | The Kamakura Daibutsu Has Sat Outdoors for 500 Years — the Hall Was Swept Away by a Tsunami

By Nihongo to Japan · Updated June 17, 2026

The Kamakura Daibutsu originally sat inside a wooden hall. A 1498 tsunami washed it away and it was never rebuilt. Knowing that, the 770-year-old bronze statue sitting in open air feels completely different.

[About Kōtoku-in]

Kōtoku-in is a Jōdo-shū Buddhist temple in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, home to the Kamakura Daibutsu — Japan's second largest bronze Buddha statue, standing 11.3 meters tall and weighing 121 tons. Casting began in 1252, which means this statue is over 770 years old.

I'm not religious, and places like this usually don't do much for me — but the atmosphere here is genuinely good. We visited during cherry blossom season, and having the Buddha framed against the hillside and sakura on both sides made for a view that carries real weight.

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[The Buddha used to have a roof]

This is the part that actually makes the place interesting once you know it. When the Daibutsu was first built, it was housed inside a large wooden hall — the same way most temple statues are displayed, enclosed in a building.

In the mid-1300s, two successive typhoons destroyed the hall. It was rebuilt, but in 1498 a major earthquake in Sagami Bay triggered a tsunami that swept into Kamakura and flattened the hall entirely. Nobody ever rebuilt it after that. The Buddha has been sitting outdoors, exposed to rain and wind, for over five hundred years since.

On the back of the statue, you can still see two diamond-shaped openings called lotus windows — ventilation holes from when the building still had a roof. They're bigger than you'd expect, and they're the only physical trace left of the original structure.

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[You can go inside]

Beyond walking around the outside, you can pay separately (¥200) to enter the interior of the statue, climbing up through the pedestal to chest level and looking out through the windows. It's not a large space — just the bare metal structure inside — but being able to say you've stood inside a 770-year-old Buddha is its own kind of thing.

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[Before You Go]

・Admission: ¥300 (adults), ¥200 extra to enter the interior

・Hours: 08:00–17:30 (to 17:00 Nov–Mar)

・Access: Enoden (Enoshima Electric Railway) to Hase Station, 10-min walk; or bus from JR Kamakura Station to Daibutsu-mae stop

・From Tokyo: JR Yokosuka Line or Shonan-Shinjuku Line to Kamakura, approx. 1 hour, then switch to Enoden

・Nearby in Kamakura: Hase-dera Temple, Yuigahama Beach, Komachi-dori shopping street

・Kamakura day-trip passes can be checked on [Klook](https://klook.tpx.lv/IuSKdjjt) or [KKday](https://kkday.tpx.lv/juFfN7dI)