Nara - truly peaceful....

 

Nara was the Imperial Capital until the Buddhist went a touch too far. The rise of Buddhism was seen as a threat to Shinto about 1300+ years ago, which had the potential to erode the authority of the Emperor and, more importantly, the bureaucracy that goes along with the office. The then court decided to move to Kyoto leaving behind quite a few impressive temples which still exist today. 

 

Nara is a relatively short 40 minute train trip from Kyoto. Once again, most of the view from the train window is rice fields, though with some interesting variations. I'm not sure what this is, but it reminds me of the launch towers at Cape Canaveral where they roll the rockets out, though this version doesn't seem to have movable temples...

Arriving at the Hanshin Nara station, the first thing noticed is the lack of tourist crowds. This is a running theme throughout the trip - it's nice to have few crushing, sweaty bodies around, but worrisome for the folks who rely on them. 

Some of the slack is taken up by the hordes of school trips visiting. Because of time and energy limitations (even easy walks in sauna weather are draining), we decided to visit just Todai-ji, home of the Daibutsu - the great sitting bronze Buddha statue. Along the path to the temple, we run into great quantities of two things:

    School kids, many elementary students in their yellow hats

  Deer, often mixed with the kids or pursuing treats from anyone walking by [NOTE: there are way too many cute deer pictures in the album for this post - hard to avoid them].

Some just like to show off. Most of the older males have had their antlers trimmed in a ceremony earlier in the Summer. These two had a short shoving match which just seemed to fizzle out with both wandering away in opposite directions. Deer politicians? of a sort...

Pressing on, we come to the Great Southern Gate (the picture in the header) with it's pair of 1300 statues of guardians - one on each side. Fortunately, they are restrained by wire barriers so it is relatively safe to proceed.

On to the Grand Hall...

The Great Buddha is almost 50 ft. tall and has patiently sat there for almost 1400 years. There is recent speculation that the emperor who commissioned the statue - Shomu (who died in 749) - may be included in the knee of the statue. 

The Great Hall is filled with other huge statues, including the two gold leaf deities on either side of the Great one..

...various bits of guardians...

...and impressive, fully put-together guardians in the ready.

It was a good, long day but exhausting. There are a lot more pictures than I could possibly post in the Google Album for this at https://photos.app.goo.gl/xkpN8whyiaVnRSZq7 - you've been warned about the cute deer...