In Kyoto, a city that is not short of temples or of maples, one name has stood for autumn for over a thousand years. Eikando. The phrase momiji no Eikando—the Eikando of red leaves—is old, older than most of what now surrounds it, and the temple has spent a millennium earning it. The hillside grounds turn early and turn hard, the maples crowding the slopes above the halls until the whole compound seems to be burning quietly. At its heart is an unusual figure: the Mikaeri Amida, a statue of the Buddha looking back over his shoulder. The legend says he turned to wait for a follower who had fallen behind. Climb the stone steps to the pagoda and the city opens below you, a sea of red, and in the temple's pond the leaves are reflected so completely that the line between water and sky goes missing. The evening viewings are crowded; there is no avoiding that, and it is honest to say so. Yet before the backward-looking Amida the crowd softens, almost without meaning to, and the red, which a moment ago was only beautiful, begins to look like something closer to prayer.