Nara Prefecture is often described as a tourist destination easily accessible from Kyoto and Osaka. However, it could also be said that Kyoto and Osaka owe their development as cities to their proximity to Nara.
This is because the Nara region sat at the heart of national polity for over five centuries, dating back to the advent of the Yamato Kingship in the fourth century. Nara was the birthplace of the nation we now call Japan.
Surrounded by mountains in the northwestern part of the prefecture, the Nara Basin occupies a particularly pivotal place in Japanese history, with the area home to many kofun (burial mounds), ancient palace sites and famous temples and shrines like Horyuji, Todaiji, Kofukuji and Kasuga Grand Shrine.
Nara’s scenery is markedly different from Kyoto’s, too. In Kyoto, temples and shrines can appear like isolated islands amid an ocean of modern concrete buildings. Nara is less urbanized, with its landscape of mountains and rivers lifted straight from the pages of the “Manyoshu,” Japan’s oldest poetry anthology. As such, visitors can be forgiven for imagining they have traveled back to ancient times.
Buddhism’s impact on court, culture
Until the sixth century, Japan was ruled by kings who strove to establish a unified government while representing the powerful tribes that held sway over each region. Each time power changed hands, new courts were established in an area encompassing modern-day Nara Prefecture and eastern Osaka Prefecture.
Political and administrative rule was not solely the preserve of the court, with the authority of the royal family also maintained locally by elite clans. Consequently, the area surrounding the court never fully developed into what could be described as a town.
From the end of the sixth century, the court settled around the village of Asuka in the southern part of the Nara Basin. This stability led to an increase in political, economic, religious and cultural institutions, with the most important role played by temples.
According to some theories, Buddhism originated in India in the fifth century B.C. before developing into a global religion in East Asia.
It arrived in Japan via China and the Korean Peninsula around the middle of the sixth century. Some clans subsequently built their own temples in Asuka. However, Japan already had its own indigenous faith and gods, so on a national level, the arrival and acceptance of this new “global” religion posed huge political problems and potentially threatened civil war.
The acceptance of Buddhism also entailed the wholesale introduction of new technologies, personnel and culture from the continent to facilitate the establishment of new “hardware” in the form of temples and “software” in the form of Buddhism itself.
Horyuji Temple, a World Heritage Site and the world’s oldest wooden structure, is considered an archetypal Japanese tourist spot by many foreign tourists. When Horyuji was first built, however, it did not seem particularly “Japanese” to the local residents, with the temple serving as a kind of university, attracting the best and most advanced technologies and culture from overseas.
This dynamic story of domestic and international politics is told through historical materials like mokkan (wooden tablets) and other illuminating archaeological finds, including resplendent adornments worn by emergent powerful figures, magnificent weapons and other items from daily life. These treasures can be viewed at The Museum, Archaeological Institute of Kashihara, Nara Prefecture and at many other museums throughout the prefecture.
The rise of Fujiwara-kyo
At the end of the seventh century, the capital moved from Asuka to Fujiwara-kyo. The streets of the new capital were laid out in a grid pattern, modeled after advanced cities abroad. The city expanded across 5.3 square kilometers around a palace over 900 square meters. Government by a coalition of elite clans was now replaced by a centralized administration run by the emperor and his retainers, based on the Chinese legal system.
The tale of this dramatic leap from village to town can be traced through the extant historical ruins, with the monumental expanse of the Fujiwara Palace Site contrasting sharply with the compact nature of the Asuka Palace Site.
Excavation on the Fujiwara Palace Site began in 1966, with the palace’s actual appearance growing clearer by the day. Surveyed locations have been reburied, but the raised foundation of the palace’s Daigokuden (Imperial Audience Hall) still exists, and the remains of some postholes have been marked with red pillars, so visitors can still sense the scale of the buildings that once stood there. The famous peaks mentioned in the “Manyoshu,” including Mount Amanokagu to the east, Mount Unebi to the west and Mount Miminashi to the north, can also be seen from the site.
Collectively, these ruins are known as the Asuka-Fujiwara sites and are expected to be added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in July 2026.
Treasures of Heijo-kyo
After 16 years, the capital was moved north from Fujiwara-kyo to the other side of the Nara Basin. The new capital Heijo-kyo was founded in 710 in the center of the basin’s northern end, an area that now encompasses Nara’s prefectural and municipal offices and a bustling downtown area.
After initially blooming in Asuka, Buddhist culture was now incorporated into urban design, with plans for Heijo-kyo including the development of religious spaces, as epitomized by the founding of great temples like Kofukuji and Yakushiji.
These temples were cherished and protected by countless people through the ages and can still be visited to this day, over a thousand years later. As Japan is surrounded by the sea and thus harder to invade, a great many of its ancient cultural properties have survived to the present. This is not to say they have never been endangered, though.
As Japan modernized in the 19th century, the government moved to clearly separate Buddhism and Shintoism from one another. The two religions had previously coexisted, but many Buddhist temples were destroyed during this period, and many Buddhist artworks were taken from the country. This government policy had a major impact in Nara, home to numerous temples.
The Imperial Nara Museum, now known as the Nara National Museum, was founded in 1889 to protect Buddhist treasures and spread awareness of their value. This museum system was one of several frameworks that arose through a process of trial and error to ensure the survival of cultural properties, with Japan’s system of cultural heritage protection now renowned across the world.
The museum’s Buddhist Sculpture Hall displays around a hundred statues at all times, showcasing examples representative of the flourishing of Buddhist sculpture in Japan from the sixth to 14th centuries, including many works that have been designated National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties under the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties.
In terms of both quality and quantity, this is one of the world’s finest collections of Buddhist sculpture. The works on display reveal how Japanese sculptors studied those produced in China and the Korean Peninsula to create their own sculptures infused with a uniquely Japanese aesthetic. The resulting works offer insight into the highest aesthetic standards of Buddhist sculpture in contemporaneous China and the Korean Peninsula, examples of which only rarely survived in their places of origin.
The brilliant essence of the Buddhist art that has been lost in much of East Asia was revived again in Nara, a city at the center of what was becoming an island-nation at the eastern periphery of the Eurasian continent. The capital later moved to Kyoto and then Tokyo, but the radiance and reverberations of Japan’s early history can still be experienced in Nara’s historical sites, temples and museums.
Compiled with the cooperation of:
Yasutoshi Tsurumi, curator of The Museum, Archaeological Institute of Kashihara, Nara Prefecture (1994 to 2024) and professor at Nagoya University, Graduate School of the Humanities, and Tomoji Iwai, curator of sculpture, Nara National Museum
Originally published in August 2023, this article has been re-edited and updated by the Japan Times Agency.
Mari Hashimoto
Director of Kankitsuzan Art Museum establishment preparation office, Odawara Art Foundation; former vice-chairperson of Eisei Bunko Museum (a private museum of the Hosokawa dynasty); visiting professor, Kanazawa Institute of Technology
NARA NATIONAL MUSEUM
Address: 50 Noborioji-cho, Nara 630-8213
Hours: 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, and till 7 p.m. on Saturdays.
Last entry: 30 mins before closing.
In addition, there may be temporary changes to museum hours.
Closed: On Mondays* and from Dec. 28 to Jan. 1.
*When a national holiday falls on a Monday, the museum opens but closes on Tuesday instead. For consecutive holidays, the museum opens but closes on the day after they end.
Please note that the museum may occasionally open on Mondays or close on days other than those listed above. For the latest schedule and details, please check the official website.
The Buddhist Sculpture Hall will be closed for renovations for about a year and a half, starting Sept. 14.
Website: https://www.narahaku.go.jp/english/
