"Hundreds of temples in Japan are known to keep mysterious 'hidden buddhas' secreted away ... An American graduate student begins to suspect the mysterious purpose of the hidden buddhas, just as he falls in love with a beautiful Japanese artist who is haunted by an aborted child. The weaving of karma that brings these two together results in a tech-savvy half-Western, half-Japanese child who text-messages her way through the profane world to the enlightenment. Tracing the lives of its characters through the late 20th century to the present, from Paris to Kyoto to California, Hidden buddhas turns a cosmopolitan eye on discipline and decadence in religion, fashion, politics and modern life"--Page 4 of cover.