Horyuji and the Mass of School Kids

Yesterday we went to Horyuji Temple near Nara. It's a truly amazing place, the oldest temple in Japan with some of the oldest wooden structures in the world. Founded in 607 CE, the temple was the work of Prince Shotoku at the request of his father Emperor Yomei. In 670, the temple succumbed to a fire and was burnt to the ground. There is, however, some discrepancy as to the verity of the inscriptions which give us this information and some scholars are inclined to believe that the fire never really happened. Either way, the temple was the first built in Japan as well as the first UNESCO World Heritage site in Japan.

The complex itself is very impressive, you walk up a tree lined path, through a gate and can immediately see the main temple complex and the five story pagoda. there are several smaller temple within the grounds as well and both are quite impressive in that they are unlike any other temples I've seen... they're round. Well, not round round, but roundish.

Probably the most impressive thing about the temple was the vast numbers of school children that it could hold. There was tour group after tour group shuffling through the temple. There must have been a couple thousand kids there. Some were pretty funny and repeatedly said "hello" to KC... others looked like they'd rather have been somewhere else entirely... a typical school field trip, I guess.

There was also a museum in the temple that displayed 1,400 years worth of treasures dedicated to the worship of Buddha. Included in the treasures is a sword called "Sword of Seven Stars." KC tells me that it's a extremely famous sword that he never expected to ever see... but that's about all I can tell you about it. You'd have to pester him for more information.


In the next few days we'll be finishing up most of our sightseeing in Nara, with the Kasuga Taisha Shrine and Naramachi, the old part of Nara, and then we'll be going to Kyoto again to see the Heian Shrine, Sanjusangendo Temple, and Nishi Honganji Temple. Hopefully, within that time I'll be able to procure myself a Japanese-English electronic dictionary. That way I'll be able to work on my Japanese with greater efficiency, which is always a good thing.


PS. There are more photos up, but I haven't had time to label any of them.