Horyuji Temple

I was very excited to finally visit this famous temple. It is a little out of the way (about 15 minutes by train and then 30 minutes on foot from Nara City). It is one of the oldest temples in all of Japan, being founded not long after Buddhism came from China via Korea. Besides housing a huge collection of Japan’s national treasures, it also boasts the world’s oldest and second oldest wooden buildings.

The huge pagoda and main temple building were both built in the mid-600s by Prince Shotoku. This prince was one of the most important reasons why Japan even has Buddhism. The buildings are in amazing shape and are quite impressive. I guess usually you can go into the main temple building but it is closed for repairs until next year. The other buildings and wooden colonnades were built in different time periods but none earlier that 500 years ago. It is amazing that those wooden structures have managed to evade fires, earthquakes, decay and war.

We were luckily enough to see a very special statue. Housed in an octagonal wooden building built in the 700s, it is a wooden gilded likeness of Prince Shotoku carved in the 600s. It is Japan’s oldest wooden statue and it is in a pristine state of preservation. The reason for its good condition is that over a thousand years ago it was considered dangerous and was wrapped up in layers and layers of white cloth and hidden away from human eyes. It wasn’t until the late 1800s that an American anthropologist was allowed to unwrap the statue for study. It is only on display twice a year and we happened to be there for one of those. It was hard to see since the light was dim but it was kind of creepy.

There weren’t many tourists at the temple but there were hundreds and hundreds of Japanese students there on school trips. Sometimes it was like a sea of student uniforms and yellow hats! At one point I saw a large praying mantis on the ground and was taking its picture. Well, this attracted the attention of a huge group of high school boys. They came over and as we left they started kicking stones at the mantis and being very mean to it. We couldn’t watch and went to the other side of the courtyard. When we came back a few minutes later there was another group poking at it and harassing it. I couldn’t stand it any longer and I marched over there and quickly cupped the 7-8 inch insect in my hands to take it somewhere for safety. The boys stared and then started yelling, ‘No! Poison! Poison!’. I ignored them and took the mantis to a safe place under a tree. The crowd dispersed and we were happy to see the mantis still alive and kicking a little later on our way out. It seemed especially ironic that that stupid group of boys were being mean to another living creature in one of the oldest Buddhist temple in Japan!