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| Cucumbers and eggplant pickled in saké lees - nara-zuke. Product variations, many tailored to today’s modern tastes though still made with traditional methods, are so numerous that they leave little empty space on store shelves. |
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Gentle sunlight pours in from the south through the open doors of the Daibutsuden (“Great Buddha Hall”) of Todaiji (“Great Eastern Temple”). Dim candlelight and the fragrance of incense permeate the hall where a 15-meter image of the Buddha Birushana (Sanskit: Vairocana) sits in majestic splendor. People stand before the Buddha, their eyes closed and hands joined in reverent prayer. Enter the ambience, and—believer or not—one finds oneself overtaken by a tranquil peace.
Nara is the modern incarnation of Heijokyo, an ancient city planned and built some 1,300 years ago. It was modeled on Chang-an, the capital of China’s Tang dynasty (619–907), which prospered from the east-west trade along the famous Silk Road. Heijokyo, located roughly at the center of the Japanese islands, was the island nation’s imperial capital from A.D. 710 to 794. Here the emperors of the day, newly converted to Buddhism, built numerous temples to ensure the peace and prosperity of the nation. Todaiji’s Daibutsuden, the world’s largest wooden structure, is one of those temples, and today as in days of old, almost every visitor to Nara comes to see the Great Buddha.
Buddhism, which originated in India in the fifth century B.C., spread through China and later to the Korean peninsula, and was transmitted to Japan around the middle of the sixth century A.D. from the Korean kingdom of Paekche. Todaiji and other venerable temples of Nara, such as Gankoji and Yakushiji, were built when the capital was moved to Heijokyo, and are among eight Nara temples designated as World Heritage sites by UNESCO. These temples have survived the ravages of numerous wars and are what mark Nara as one of Japan’s most familiar cultural and historical centers. |
