A Buddhist temple in the Tennoji district with an unusual and striking tradition. Since 1903, Isshin-ji has been creating large-scale Buddha statues from the compressed ashes and bones of deceased worshippers — a practice that has produced eight statues over the century, each one containing the remains of 150,000 to 200,000 people. The statues are displayed in the main hall; approaching them, the faces read as normal Buddhist iconography until you know what they contain.
The temple complex is compact but interesting architecturally, with gates and halls rebuilt in the modern era in styles that deliberately mix Buddhist, Hindu, and contemporary Japanese design elements. It sits adjacent to Shitennoji Temple in the Tennoji park complex. The most recent statue took 25 years of accumulated remains to complete and was finished in 2007.