Tennōji-ku

Yeah.

And one of these things that happened this summer is when I met you for the first time at a Starbucks in Tennoji.

And you mentioned that you were doing an episode on Abe no Seme.

Seme? Am I saying that right? Semi? Seme? Seme.

But to understand the man, you have to understand the place he came from.

Tennoji, and Abino itself, is thick with temples.

Shitennoji, one of Japan's oldest Buddhist temples, sits just blocks from where he's said to have walked, a district where the sacred and the everyday have always sat side by side.

Historically speaking, Abino Seme was born in 921, in what is now Osaka's Abino district.

It may be found everywhere by those who know how to look for it, and nowhere more easily than in this great city of shipbuilding, watchmaking, beer brewing, and cotton spinning.

I confess that I went to Osaka chiefly to see the temples, especially the famous Tennoji.

Tennoji, or more correctly Shitennoji, the temple of the four deva kings, is one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Japan.

It was founded nearly in the 7th century by Umayado no Oji, now called Shotoku Taishi, son of the Emperor Yome and Prince Regent under the Empress Suiko, 572 to 621 AD.

He has been well called the Constantine of Japanese Buddhism, for he decided the future of Buddhism in the empire, first by a great battle in the reign of his father, Yome Tenno, and afterwards by legal enactments and by the patronage of Buddhist learning.

Instantly at his side in the fight, there towered a colossal figure from before whose face the powers of Moriya broke and fled away.

The rout of the enemies of Buddhism was complete and terrible, and the young prince, thereafter called Shotoku Taishi, kept his vow.

The temple of Tennoji was built, and the wealth of the rebel Moriya applied to its maintenance.

It may be found everywhere by those who know how to look for it, and nowhere more easily than in this great city of shipbuilding, watchmaking, beer brewing, and cotton spinning.

I confess that I went to Osaka chiefly to see the temples, especially the famous Tennoji.

Tennoji, or more correctly Shitennoji, the temple of the four deva kings, is one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Japan.

It was founded nearly in the 7th century by Umayado no Oji, now called Shotoku Taishi, son of the Emperor Yome and Prince Regent under the Empress Suiko, 572 to 621 AD.

He has been well called the Constantine of Japanese Buddhism, for he decided the future of Buddhism in the empire, first by a great battle in the reign of his father, Yome Tenno, and afterwards by legal enactments and by the patronage of Buddhist learning.

Instantly at his side in the fight there towered a colossal figure from before whose face the powers of Moriya broke and fled away.

The rout of the enemies of Buddhism was complete and terrible, and the young prince, thereafter called Shotoku Taishi, kept his vow.

The temple of Tennoji was built and the wealth of the rebel Moriya applied to its maintenance.