Japan -- Oct/Nov 2007

This photo was taken at a Buddhist temple (I think it's called a temple) in Maiko, near the suspension bridge featured in previous photos. If I understand things correctly, in the Japanese religion(s) Buddha is mostly concerned with the dead and Shinto is mostly concerned with the living. The gray stone slabs in the foreground are memorial markers (like grave markers), and I suspect the light-colored ones up on the mound in the background are too. I later learned that these probably do not mark below-grade "graves," in the sense that I think of them in the US. In Japan, as I understand it, the dead are generally cremated. These markers contain a compartment that holds the ashes. That's one reason they can be so closely spaced.


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