ABOUT
About this spot
Toshodaiji is the head temple of the Ritsu school of Buddhism, located in Gojo-cho, Nara. In 759, the monk Ganjin, who had come from Tang China, received the former residence of Prince Niitabe from the court and turned it into a temple. Its first name, Toritsu Shodai, meant a training hall for studying Tang monastic discipline. In 1998 it was registered as part of the World Heritage site "Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara". Ganjin set out to bring monastic precepts to Japan, and after repeated failed attempts he finally arrived on his sixth try in 753. In 754 he gave the precepts to Retired Emperor Shomu and Empress Dowager Komyo in front of the Great Buddha Hall of Todaiji, and he died in 763. The temple declined from the mid-Heian period, was revived in 1244 with Kakujo as its restorer, and was repaired in the Edo period under the patronage of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi and others. Yasushi Inoue's 1957 novel Tenpyo no Iraka made the temple widely known. The highlight is the National Treasure Kondo (Golden Hall), built in the late Nara period, with a hip roof and a front of seven bays left open. It enshrines National Treasures including the dry-lacquer seated Vairocana, the Thousand-Armed Kannon and the Yakushi Nyorai. The hall was dismantled and repaired from 2000 and reopened in November 2009. The Lecture Hall, a National Treasure, was originally the Eastern Assembly Hall of the Heijo Palace. The Koro drum tower and the azekura-style (log-cabin construction) Kyozo and Hozo storehouses are also National Treasures. The Miedo (Important Cultural Property) was moved in 1964 from the Ichijoin of Kofukuji and holds wall paintings by Kaii Higashiyama. It houses the National Treasure statue of Ganjin, said to be Japan's oldest portrait sculpture, and is open only from June 5 to 7, around the anniversary of Ganjin's death. The temple is open 8:30-17:00 (last entry 16:30). It is about 8 minutes on foot from Nishinokyo Station on the Kintetsu Kashihara Line, and Yakushiji is about 790 m away.
Last updated October 18, 2026