Todai-ji Museum
Earthquake-isolated museum sheltering fragile Nara-period Buddhist statues and temple treasures.
This guide to the Todai-ji Museum in Nara opens with two fires, in 1180 and 1567, that each cost the temple's great bronze Buddha pieces of itself, and asks why a temple built entirely from wood only reached for stone and steel in 2011. Inside, the cases float on seismic dampers built to protect what timber halls could not, including four fiercely painted clay Heavenly Kings modeled some thirteen hundred years ago for the nearby Kaidan-in ordination hall. You'll also find a slender thousand-armed bodhisattva and the paired figures of Nikko and Gakko standing beside them, each having already outlasted a fire of its own.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.