Our field trip to Nara started with a grave visitation. No one knows whose grave it is, but the Fujinoki Kofun tumulus entombs two people of some apparent wealth and influence from the 6th century AD. Excavation began in 1985, the coffin was opened in 1988, and since then they have found many treasures important to researching life and culture in ancient Japan, including gilt bronze metaleware, a ceremonial sword with a jewel-studded scabbard (among many other swords), bronze mirrors, earthenwares, and numerous silver and glass jewelry.
You can go up to the door at the end of the slice of hill they've made, but it's nearly impossible to really see what's inside. It was all very dark and cloudy and mysterious when I took a gander at the window. No fascinating skeletons with luminescent bones.
...Man, I miss watching Bones.
And now for the main event: Houryuuji.
Houryuuji was founded during the Asaka period by Prince Shotoku, a very important regent and politician in Japan's history, as well as a great supporter of Buddhism. Originally, Emperor Youmei planned to have the temple dedicated to Yakushi Nyorai built so he might pray for his recovery from an illness which unfortunately took his life before he could see his wish granted. Empress Suiko and Prince Shotoku fulfilled his last wish in 607, building Ikaruga Temple (originally named for the Nara district to which it belonged.)Going through the Chuumon gate (above), you can see the two oldest known
statues of Niou in Japan, dating from the Nara period.
These intimidating Niou guys are large, muscular guardian deities, typically dressed
in simple loincloths with no armor. You might consider them ancient bodyguards
or bouncers, protectors against evil.
Looking back from the Chuumon towards the Nandaimon
Our sensei explaining Houryuuji 's origins
The way Houryuuji 's buildings are organized actually has its own official temple-layout terminology: the Houryuuji -style layout. The cloister gallery extending from the Chuumon encloses the pagoda on the west and the Kondoto the east. On the opposite side of the enclosure is the Daikodo in the middle, with the Kyozo Sutra Repository on its left, and the Bell House on the right.
The double-roof of Houryuuji 's main hall is rather unusual. Dragon statues entwine
themselves around the four corner pillars supporting the upper roof.
The Kondo houses a very well-known bronze Shaka Triad created in 623 by Kuratsukuri Tori, a famous sculpture from the Asuka period. (A triad simply means the Buddha represented is accompanied by two Bodhisattva on either side.) The Shaka Nyorai is said to have been made in the likeness of Prince Shotoku, who some believed to be a reincarnation of the historical Buddha or of Kannon. To the east of the Shaka Triad stands a 7th c. bronze Yakushi Nyorai, dedicated to Emperor Youmei. The current Yakushi is a remake of the original from 607, when the iconography of the Yakushi Nyorai holding a medicine pot in one hand was still undeveloped. To the Shaka Triad's west, there is an Amida Nyorai from the Kamakura period (specifically, in 1230), made in honor of Prince Shotoku's mother Empress Anahobe no Hashihito. Though the composition of the Amida Triad is modeled after the Shaka Triad's, the style is completely divergent from the Shaka Triad's Chinese Northern Wei-style origins: the faces and bodies of the Amida Buddha and the attendant Bodhisattva are much less elongated, and the linear stylization of their garments is simplified.
Heian period statues of Kichijoten, the goddess of good luck, and Bishamonten, a war-god protector, are also housed in the main hall, and at the four corners of the altar are wooden statues of the Shitennou from the Hakuho period. Reconstructed murals on the four walls surrounding the altar depict different visions of Buddhist paradise. The northern mural depicts the Miroku Nyorai's paradise, the east, Yakushi Nyorai's, the south, Shaka Nyorai's, and the west, the paradise of Amida Buddha. Soaring in the ceiling above the altar are celestial beings and phoenixes in the carved wooden canopies, dating from the 7th c. I wish I could provide my own pictures of these, but photography of altars inside Kondo, or of most precious, ancient religious images, is usually dame. This site, however, is an excellent source of Buddhist and Shinto iconography and images, and just a good reference site for information on the religions in general. (It also has photographs of most of the important statues and treasures I'll be mentioning in this post.)
The Gojuu no Tou is the oldest five-story pagoda in Japan, constructed in the Asuka period. Like the Kondo, the pagoda has a double-roof on its bottom story; another unusual feature is the decreasing roof size with each story going up. The pagoda contains clay four cave-scene sculptures from 711, one facing each cardinal direction.
Detail on the base of the stone lantern
After seeing the Kondo and pagoda, we walked through the Daikodo, originally constructed in the Heian period. Unfortunately we couldn't see the beautiful facade, because it was under some construction during our visit, concealed with tarps and surrounded by scaffolding. Inside, though, there was a large sculpture of the Yakushi triad and Shitennou, which was rebuilt in 990 after a lightning-fire burned down the hall 65 years earlier. Then, before venturing into the Daihouzouin, the Gallery of Temple Treasures, I got my nokyo-cho signed in the hall housing Prince Shotoku's soul, called Shouryouin. This hall and the identical one next to it, were built in the Kamakura period originally as the monks' quarters, then later the southern part of the East Quarters was converted to enshrine a statue of Shotoku from the Heian period.
1) Your Japanese isn't that great--whether or not it actually is bad or if you're just pretending, it works. If they think you can't understand what they're asking you, or if they perceive a big language barrier, they will be quick to give up on you. (The first conversation I had with a hentai walking to the I-House in the evening ended with him saying "Chotto muzukashii, ne?" in response to my series of noncommittal and confused noises, before just walking off.)
2) You're uninterested. If you don't express interest, they'll pick up on that and leave you alone pretty quickly.
3) You're show signs of discomfort or uncertainty. See above.
4) You're outright rejecting him, saying you're not interested, you can't be their "friend," you don't want to go to their home, etc. Chances are, it won't come to actually come to this point. They're not terribly persistent, and are likely to sense the uselessness of their attentions before you have to break conversational politeness.
There's a reason Japan's considered one of the safer places in the world. Even the perverts are relatively harmless. I'm sure there are more serious cases, especially in cities like Tokyo, but this is just the generalization most of us, us being foreigners studying abroad here, have come to in our time in Japan.
This particular man, who must have been in his fifties or sixties, might have seemed to be carrying a normal Japanese-foreigner conversation at first: he asked what country I was from, where I was staying in Japan. Then he asked if I was sixteen or seventeen. Which I suppose shouldn't have offended me so much--at least no one mistakes me for a woman in her forties--it's just that I've been out of high school for four years now. If I was a normal college student with only one major, I could have already been a college graduate by now. I don't have a baby face anymore. In fact, I'm pretty sure I stopped having a baby face sometime between 10th and 11th grade...I blame looking younger in 11th grade on the braces. My sensei said that he probably thought I was in high school because I was wearing shorts. Oh boy. They weren't cargo shorts or anything, but they definitely weren't as short as they wear 'em here either. It's a good thing Japanese girls tend towards the slim, because if they had any serious curves or heft on them, their skirts would be in serious danger of not fulfilling their functionality as clothing. It still makes me nervous sometimes just watching them walk by on campus or in town, but not in a cute, amusing Marilyn-Monroe-moment way.
Anyway, eventually he told us---his attention was on me, but I kept looking to Sabine and Hanne for translation help--that we could stay at his house nearby. This was after being told that we were returning to our school in Kyoto in the evening.
I looked at the two German girls sitting next to me.
Nervous laughter.
Time to go.
After lunch and the pursuits of passive perverts, we retreated into the cool of the Daihouzouin, the Gallery of Temple Treasures. Built in the Heisei period, it's essentially a museum, with a hall devoted to Kannon smack in the middle. Inside the gallery are some very intriguing pieces of Buddhist art.
The Tamamushi-zushi built in the mid-7th century, is made from Japanese cypress with a lacquer finish. It might be a bit difficult to see in the dim lighting, but there are also thousands of iridescent wings from the tamamushi beetle laid underneath the pierced ornamental bronze metalwork. The tabernacle has four scenes on its side; two of the scenes emphasize the Buddha's self-sacrifice and compassion. One scene shows The Hungry Tigress story from the Jataka Tales. The Buddha comes across a tigress who has just given birth to a litter of hungry cubs, and sees they are all starving, so he offers himself as meal so that they might survive. On the opposite side is another continuous narrative scene showing a leap-of-faith legend. The Buddha in one of his incarnations comes across Indra (Taishakuten, in Japan), who has disguised himself as a demon and gives him the first part of a riddle: "All things are impermanent; this is the law of coming into being and cessation. Only when coming into being and cessation are extinguished is the bliss of nirvana attained." In order to hear the rest of this profound poem, the demon tells him he has to jump from the edge of a nearby cliff. The Buddha does so, and the demon transforms back into Indra, catching him in midair before telling him the end of the riddle/poem.
Another two items of particular note are Lady Tachibana's tabernacle with a bronze Amida triad sitting upon lotus flowers on a pond, and the Yumechigai Kannon statue, both from the Hakuho period. The Kannon hall in the middle of the Daihouzouin is a rather recent addition, finally arranged in 1998 specifically to enshrine the Kudara Kannon statue. This especially enchanting piece is made of gilded camphor wood dates from the Asuka period, and is considered an exemplar of Japanese Buddhist art. The statue is unusually graceful, slender, and well-proportioned, although slightly elongated, and its sculptor(s) gave Kannon's face and gesture an especially captivating and gentle expression. Our sensei said the previous semester, the students were so enthralled that nearly all of them ended up writing about this piece for their composition on what caught their interest in their trip to Nara.
The Kuse Kannon was not on display when we visited, but we could see all the other pieces surrounding it, statues of Kannon, Shotoku, monks who founded and were important to the establishment of the Dream Hall, and so on.
So, here's a question:
What do you call a belfry, but instead of a bell, it has a drum?
A drumfry? I hear the correct term may be "drum tower,"
but I think drumfry sounds better.
And one more thing: what are these gorgeous plants called?
I saw them last year in Rota, Spain, but I don't recall having seen them anywhere in the States before.
