Tōshōdai-ji - Nara

Very old temple steeped in nature.

A quiet and lovely place filled with culture treasures. I don't speak Japanese so my understanding of the culture and historical aspects were limited. There is a really nice park in the back though.

One of the most amazing and historical places in Japan. You should go to the biggest building in the temple. You can see a thousand hands Buddha sculpture, which was sculpted more than a thousand years ago, that is national treasure of Japan.

Great environment with high history and culture values.

Large complex with wild and potted lotus in July.

Very well kept headquarters of the Ritsu-shu sect. Expect an entrance fee of roughly 1000円

In the morning, we took a bus to Tōshōdai-ji. This temple was a Buddhist temple which was gesigned and built by Chinese monk Jianzhen. The temple was already 1,300 years old and was an very important model for professionals to study the ancient architectures in Tang Dynasty, assessed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Before entering, we lift our heads to see the gate of Tōshōdai-ji, there was a long-historic plaque written 4 Chinese of "Tōshōdai-ji" on it. It was said that the 4 words were copied from the handwriting of great Chinese calligrapher Wang Xizhi by the Japanese emperor in the Nara period . When we entered the temple, we could see lots of great ancient architectures and treasures. The Golden Hall was quite magnificent, with simple tones, which appeared the characteristics of the Tang Dynasty architecture. In the other architecture, we saw a dry paint statue of monk Jianzhen, and we heard that this technology has been lost. In the Lecture Hall, we saw many treasures displayed such as the Chiwen usually decorated on the roof of temple or palace was as high as an adult showed that the craft level at that time was very high. It was worthy to mention that the Tōshōdai-ji provided APP for mobile phone downloading. Visitors could follow the APP to guide themselves, very good service! However, a male administrator in the Lecture Hall was too small minded. As long as the child put his hand on the guardrail used to separate tourists and treasures, he would shout loudly, so many visitors hurried to finish visiting and brought their child to leave the spot. Is this not contrary to the Buddhist spirit of tolerance? It was ridiculous!! Tōshōdai-ji was not small, we stayed in the temple for more than two hours and left for next place. 早上，我們從JR奈良站前搭巴士前往唐招提寺，唐昭提寺是中國唐朝時代，由中國僧侶鑒真親自規畫、建造的佛寺，距今已有1300年的歷史，是現今研究中國古建築的重要範本，被聯合國教科文組織評定為世界文化遺產。唐招提寺的大門上懸掛著一塊歷史悠久的匾額，上面書寫著"唐招提寺"四個大字，據說是日本奈良時代天皇臨摹中國晉朝大書法家王羲之的字跡所寫的。金堂的建築也相當宏偉，色調古樸，可以看出唐朝時期建築的特色。此外，寺廟裡還有一尊鑒真的乾漆坐像，供人憑弔，據說這種技術已經失傳了。大講堂裡展示許多寶物，例如屋簷上的鴟吻就有一個成人的高度，可見當時的工藝水準十分高超。值得一提的是，唐招提寺提供手機APP下載，旅客可以在寺廟裡，遵循APP的導覽逐一參觀，這是非常好的服務。不過，大講堂裡的一個男管理員過於小家子氣，只要小孩子稍稍將手放在用於區隔遊客和寶物的護欄上，就上前大聲喝斥，因此不少帶著孩子前來參觀的父母，都草草結束，離開現場，這豈不是與講求寬宏大度的佛教精神背道而馳嗎?實在令人感到荒謬極了。唐招提寺佔地不小，我們在寺廟裡停留了兩個多小時才離開，前往下一個景點。

I came to the fantastic temple to re-live the gorgeous dayss of Tang Dynasty.