Peace Pagoda
Battersea Park, overlooking the River Thames, is home to the Battersea Park Peace Pagoda, gifted to the London by the Nipponzan-Myōhōji order of Japanese Buddhism. There are about 80 Peace Pagodas around the world today and they are the life’s work of Nichidatsu Fujii (August 6, 1885 – January 9, 1985), a Japanese monk who founded Nipponzan-Myōhōji in 1917. He promoted world peace and protested against the war in the Pacific during WW2 and the Cold War. The first two Peace Pagodas were built in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The gilded bronze statues represent the progression of the Buddha’s life through birth, enlightenment, and the first preaching of Dharma and Parinirvana.
