Kofukuji Temple

Points of View
(1)The magnificent pagoda
(2)The building near the pagoda
(3)Images in the museum

This temple is right in the middle of Nara City, and is relatively open to everybody. The site of the temple is partially open to the public, and there are a number of buildings there. The highlights are the five-story tower, the building next to it and the statues in the museum. Now, let’s go and see these.

On entering the complex, you first see the big five-story tower. It is magnificent and powerful, and its silhouette, as well as its appearance, is stable. Looking at it, you can feel its air of ancientness. The original purpose of the structure was to house a small piece of bone from Buddha’s body. However, it is too big to have been used simply for this purpose, and it also served as a symbol. The governors of the day took advantage of the power of religion to rule over the common people, and needed plain symbols to support this authority. Such symbols took the form of structures like this tower and Buddhist images.

Next to the tower stands another relatively large structure. This building is also of an excellent standard, and is quite tall in relation to its width. This may be partly because people in those days considered the balance between the volume of the interior and the size of the next tower. When you enter this building, you can see the many images it contains.

Incidentally, Nara has more excellent old images than Kyoto, although there are certainly many fine images in Kyoto such as those in Toji Temple or Sanjusangen-do Temple. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, Nara has more old temples than Kyoto, and such excellent images were generally created before the capital was moved from Nara to Kyoto more than 1,200 years ago. The second reason is that there were many more fires and battles in Kyoto than in Nara, so many more old temples and other treasures were destroyed. In fact, hardly any original old temples remain at all in Kyoto. Impressive images do remain, however, in this temple.

Next, let’s go and see the museum. This is located in the north part of the site, and contains many Buddhist images that are classed as national treasures, each with a different face. Incidentally, why was such a variety of images made when Buddhism was founded by the Buddha?  Moreover, why were so many images made showing figures other than the Buddha? At the beginning of Buddhism, only images of the Buddha could be made, but as Buddhism spread and developed, a larger variety of images was created. This was because the Buddha alone could not help in the real world, and people at the time needed a range of gods, so many different images were made. Some of the images are of ancient Indian gods. Some are angry, while others are calm. Some are gods with clear-cut features, and others are not.

The magnificent buildings and the numerous images represent the highlights of this temple.


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Related site: Horyuji Temple, Todaiji Temple, Toji Temple