Toshodai-ji

Toshodai-ji is the head temple of the Ritsu school, one of the six schools of Nara Buddhism. It was founded by the Tang monk Ganjin. In 742 the student monks Yoei and Fusho invited him to Japan as a master to transmit the monastic precepts. Over the next twelve years he failed in five attempts to cross the sea and gradually lost his sight, but on his sixth try, in 753, he finally reached Japan. After five years at Todai-ji, he was granted the former residence of Prince Niitabe and in 759 opened a training hall for those studying the precepts. At first, the temple is said to have had only a lecture hall and a sutra repository and treasure house converted from the prince's old residence.

Entering through the south gate, you see the Kondo (Golden Hall) straight ahead. Built in the late 8th century, it still shows its original form. Its completion is said to be owed to the efforts of Nyoho, one of Ganjin's disciples. The front is seven bays wide under a hipped roof, with the front bay left open, and the brackets supporting the eaves are of the three-step type (mitesaki). The central bay measures about 4.7 meters and narrows toward both ends to 3.3 meters. Inside, the principal image, a seated Vairocana, stands in the center, with a standing Yakushi Nyorai to the right and a standing thousand-armed Kannon to the left. The main image exceeds three meters, and its halo carries 862 small Buddhas. The Kannon is 5.36 meters tall and has 953 arms.

The Lecture Hall was moved from the Heijo Palace, where it had been the Eastern Audience Hall, and altered; it is regarded as the only building that preserves a trace of the Tenpyo-era palace. Its present form owes much to Kamakura-period alterations. The sutra repository and the treasure house are azekura log-style storehouses standing side by side, and the treasure house is said to have been built along with the temple's founding. The smaller sutra repository is said to be a converted rice storehouse of Prince Niitabe's mansion; it is the oldest building at the temple and regarded as the oldest azekura in Japan. Comparing the great roofs of the Kondo and Lecture Hall with the plain walls of the storehouses shows how buildings with different uses look within one temple.

East of the area between the Kondo and the Lecture Hall stands the Drum Tower, built in 1240. It is a two-story building, and because it now enshrines the Buddha relics Ganjin brought, it is also called the Sharidono (Relic Hall). Inside its shrine is the National Treasure Kinki Sharito, which holds the white glass relic jar. Walking from the south gate to the Kondo and Lecture Hall, then to the Drum Tower and storehouses on the east side, shows the skeleton of the temple Ganjin founded. The five National Treasure buildings are the Kondo, Lecture Hall, treasure house and sutra repository from the Nara period, and the Kamakura-period Drum Tower.