Kōryū-ji, on the western edge of Kyoto, was founded in 603 by the Hata clan — Korean-descended immigrants who developed the silk industry in Japan — and is the oldest Buddhist temple in the city. The current buildings are mainly Edo-period reconstructions, but the temple's Reihōkan treasure house holds a small but exceptional collection of early Buddhist sculpture, including the seated Miroku Bosatsu — a slender, gently smiling wooden bodhisattva of the seventh century that was the very first object designated a National Treasure of Japan in 1951.
The Miroku is the reason to come. Carved from red pine in a style closely related to contemporary Korean Maitreya statues, its slight, inward-turned expression and resting cheek-on-fingertip pose are among the most quietly extraordinary pieces of early East Asian sculpture in existence. The treasure house is a single hushed room; allow time to sit with the statue.