Hotels near Toshodai-ji

Toshodai-ji was founded in 759 by Ganjin, a Chinese priest who attempted the crossing to Japan five times over eleven years, lost his sight to infection somewhere along the way, and finally landed on the sixth attempt in 753. He came to install a proper system of monastic ordination. The Kondo, the main hall, went up around 780 and is the only surviving golden hall of the Nara period with its original eight-pillar entrance colonnade intact.

A ten-year dismantling and reassembly of that hall finished in 2009, with every timber catalogued on the way out and back in. Inside stand a 3 m dry-lacquer Rushana Buddha, a thousand-armed Kannon and a Yakushi Nyorai, all National Treasures. Entry is 1,000 yen, open 8:30am to 5pm with last entry at 4:30pm. Ganjin's seated portrait statue, the oldest sculpture of its kind in Japan, is displayed for only three days each June around the anniversary of his death.

Pro Tip: Walk here from Yakushi-ji instead of waiting for a bus. The lane between the two runs through ordinary Nishinokyo suburbs and takes ten minutes. Toshodai-ji draws a fraction of Todai-ji's numbers, so a 3pm arrival on a weekday gets you the Kondo almost to yourself.