Hōryū-ji
Seventh-century wooden temple complex housing the world's oldest surviving wooden buildings and a healing Buddha statue.
This guide to Horyu-ji in Nara opens with a dying emperor's bargain: in 587, Emperor Yomei vowed on his deathbed to build a temple housing a statue of Yakushi Nyorai, the healing Buddha, hoping for a cure that never came. It follows his sister Empress Suiko and his son Prince Shotoku as they finished the temple in 607 and set the statue inside what is now the oldest wooden building on earth, and it lingers on the small jar the statue's hand once held, promising relief from sickness, cold and hunger. A fire in 670 destroyed almost everything else around this hall, leaving the statue itself untouched.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.