Photography Prohibited

Manjushri (Enryakuji)

Yesterday I visited Kyoto’s Toji, The East Temple.  It’s been on my to-visit list since completing my pilgrimage of Shikoku several years ago.  With a couple of exceptions, the 88 temples along the 1200km route belong to Japan’s Shingon school of Buddhism, a Tantric school established in the 9th century by Kukai.  Toji was the master's base in Kyoto and the first Tantric temple in the capital.  Toji is also unique for housing a large collection of rare sculpture and paintings, much of it brought by Kukai from China.  

Don't photograph this (I didn't, btw, 
but found it on the net).

I found to my disappointment that visitors are prohibited from photographing any of these pieces.  I can understand the need to protect old paintings from flash photography, but not large wooden or bronze statues.  Of course, if you want to sell sets of postcards or art books, it might be in your economic interest to prevent visitors from making their own images – even sketches.  Yes, sketching is also prohibited.

Photography is a process of lavishing visual attention.  You look this way and that, up and under, with long lens and short, wide focus and narrow, to see what you can see through the camera.  Sometimes you discover interesting perspectives or unusual details.  And when you get home to the computer you may find an image that while perhaps technically inferior to the work on the commercial postcards has lasting resonance because it represents your gaze and a record of your time with the subject.  Photographing religious objects is something akin to a religious practice, a practice of visual devotion, one I didn't get to experience at Toji, nor today at Enryakuji (but for a small Manjushri shrine -featured above- which I found was also similarly marked with a sign banning image-making, but tucked into a corner where I didn't notice it until after I was done). 

I wonder if Japan’s temple managers might consider adopting India’s practice of charging an extra fee for the use of cameras?  That way they accrue additional funds while the photographers can take away their own images – and maybe even still buy a commercial product at the gift shop.  

#