Great Buddha in Nara
Nara in Japan was once the capital city. A very long time ago 710-794 CE!
As it was such an important city, even after other cities became the capital, there are many very old and very important temples and shrines throughout the prefecture.
One of the biggest and most popular is Todaiji - Eastern Great Temple.
It starts with an enormous gate. Nandaimon (Great South Gate):
Those are regular sized people on the raised platform in the centre of the gate!
Through the gate is a long courtyard approach to the main hall of the temple.
This building is immense! Until it was surpassed in 1998 it was the largest wooden building in the world!
Even more remarkable is that this is a reconstruction (completed in 1709) is 30% SMALLER than the original.
Current dimensions for the hall are 57 metres (187 ft) long and 50 metres (160 ft) wide.
The main attraction is the statue of Buddha which stands(sits?) at 14.98m tall and 28m wide at the shoulders. The face is 5.33m alone!
As it is bronze the statue weighs about 500 tons.
While the Great Buddha statue is truly impressive, there are other very large statues within the hall flanking it.
A smaller than the Great Buddha, but nonetheless very large depiction of Kokūzō Bosatsu or Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva, who is said to have wisdom as boundless as space itself. wikipedia
Also housed in the great hall are paired statues one on each side of the hall, flanking the Great Buddha of Koumokuten "King of the West" who guards the western direction, sees through evil and punishes evil. Certainly not to be trifled with!
And on the opposite side of the hall Bishamon, guarding the eastern direction. A god of war who also punishes evil. wikipedia
When I visited the cherry blossoms were just starting to bud.
After touring the temple and extricating ourselves from the crowds, we took the car to the summit of the nearby Mt. Wakakusa which overlooks the temple and Nara city.
The weather was a bit threatening but that made for some truly wonderful clouds in the late afternoon!
Bonus Tanuki!
Didn't expect that eh?
Sources:
Todaiji Wikipedia
Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva(Kokūzō Bosatsu) wikipedia
Bishamon wikipedia
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An very relevant post today. it's Vesak Day which is a Buddhist holiday in Singapore. guess maybe it's holiday in Japan too?
That's great that it's a holiday in Singapore! Did you get the day off work?
Though Japan is a largely Buddhist country, there was no holiday here today. Last week we had a nice set of National holidays from Wednesday to Friday, so there were only two days to go to work!
Nice. Last year i heard they have silver week amd golden week. our business offices are close but retail shops and restaurants are mostly open.
Yes, this was Golden Week, Silver week is in September. Same deal, most businesses are closed but retail places are open for the people on holiday to do some shopping, sometimes there are some pretty good sales too!
Nice :)
Thanks @firesteem!
Great photos of the temple and surrounding area!
Thanks! I was a bit pressed for time as I was also guiding/shepherding my brother and his family around the temple! :P
Wonderful photos @mweich! They make me want to go there yet again. You take great photos. You have a new follower!
BTW, I also post photos of Japan (and haiku) to my Steemit page everyday, if you are interested.
Since I joined the STEEMIT network, I started to love the world of photography. Nevertheless all things must begin with learning, I am still learning by self-taught method. Taking pictures now is easy and fun. Now, most phones have cameras in them with a resolution that, just a few years ago, costs hundreds and even millions of rupiah . We do not have to worry about wasting film rolls with digital cameras, it's easy to take lots of pictures until you get the right picture. With your phone camera in your pocket or purse, you're ready to take a photo when that perfect moment arrives.
Nevertheless, the camera phone has its own limitations. Some have flash settings, but some are not. Some have zoom, while others do not. The settings are limited, though the options keep changing almost daily. Here are some ideas for taking great pictures with your camera phone. This one what i got of Margot's artives :
Lighting
Apart from blitz capabilities, natural lighting is almost always the best choice. If you are indoors, turn on the lights and experiment. Flash settings can also be used outdoors. Avoid taking pictures towards the light source because your subject can look like a dark silhouette.
I love this photo and can motivate me to learn the world of photography
I found many tips and how to:
Http://www.margothovley.com/
Follow me
@taufar
You'll have a lot more success making this post on your own blog rather than spamming it all over other people's posts.
So far it seems you've spammed this same comment to 8 other posts.
It is irrelevant to my post and likely to all of the other posts that you have spammed it on.
As such I am flagging this comment.