Nandaimon Gate
Colossal wooden guardian kings, over eight meters tall, carved in roughly seventy days by rival Kamakura-era sculptors.
This guide to Nandaimon Gate in Nara asks you to pause before the Great Buddha ahead and look instead at the two guardians boxed behind lattice at the gate itself, Agyo with his mouth roaring open and Ungyo with his sealed shut. It follows the rival sculptors Unkei and Kaikei, working with Jokaku and Unkei's own son Tankei, as they built each eight-meter giant from thousands of pegged cypress pieces in a summer of 1203, and traces why they were racing a temple's deadline after Nara's temples burned in the wars of 1180. Listen for the monk Chogen, who crossed the sea to Song China to fund the rebuilding.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.