Higashi Hongan-ji

This guide to Higashi Hongan-ji in Kyoto opens in the 1890s, when the temple had burned down yet again and workers began dying as ordinary rope snapped under the huge beams meant for its new Founder's Hall. It follows the temple's determination to rebuild bigger than ever, and the extraordinary response from women believers across Japan, who sent something unusual to Kyoto to help finish the job. The Founder's Hall and Amida Hall rose using the cable that gift made possible, finished by 1895.