On 16 Nov, we went to visit Nara Park in Kyoto. Over here, deers roam around the park freely, doing whatever they want.










The deers have long been regarded as Messengers of God by the Shinto religion and are well taken care of by the Japaneses. We weaved our way through the tourist crowds and deer droppings to make it to Todaiji Temple.



Todaiju Temple is a massive wooden structure featuring a 15m tall bronze statue of Buddha. It is the largest wooden temple in the world. The reason for the construction of the temple was because long ago, Japan faced many problems, from wars, to poverty to diseases, to prevent this from happening, the Emperor ordered many temples to be constructed, one of them being Todaiji Temple, which was built by 752 AD.




The Entrance to the Temple


One of the two guardians of the temple.


The temple was damaged before by earthquakes and fires. It originally featured two pagodas but after it was destroyed by an earthquake it was not rebuilt. The statues also received damage before, with various parts such as the heads and hands collapsing. It was only rebuilt many years later.



The Massive Statue of Buddha



When I entered the temple, I was stunned by the size of the statue. It took immense effort to build something of such scale. The tiny little picture may make what I just stated seem like exageration but you have to see the statue yourself to know. For a better understanding of how big it is, the hand of the statue is large enough to hold 11 people. The temple also featured a pillar with a hole carved from it. ( Refer to Mr Leo's Squeezie look in APetGuppy's post) The hole is believed to be the same size as the nose on the Buddha Statue and those who are able to go through the hole will be granted good fortune. A long queue of children were waiting for their chance at good luck over there. The temple also had a shop selling various charms, for "A painless childbirth", "Your True Love" or "Doing well for Exams"



Either way this trip to Nara Park has taught me that the two religions, Shintoism and Budhhism, not just tolerate each other but instead coexist with one another. Nara Park being just beside a Buddhist temple. Singapore should be like Japan, going beyond the level of "tolerance" and moving on to "co-existence". The visit has also taught me about being resilient, the temple was destroyed many times, however the Japanese, instead of mourning their loss, chose to rebuild the temple, we should apply this to our daily life, we should always strive to be better.