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Todaiji Temple
The Todaiji Buddhist temple in the central Japanese city of Nara was built in C.E 743, when Buddhism was the Japanese state religion and Nara was the res idential capital of the Japanese emperor and his court. The temple building and its statue are mod eled on the art and architecture of contemporary Tang China (c.E. 9o7). The temple was built to symbolically unify the Japanese elite and all the Bud- dhist temples that were spread throughout Japan under the centralized political and spiritual leader ship of the Japanese emperor Shomu (r. c.E. 724-749). Japanese legend records that 2,6oo,ooo people participated in its construction The Todaiji temple contains the massive Dai m) in height and is the world's largest cast bronze Buddha. The giant Buddha statue is housed in a wooden building, which at 157 feet (48 m) high is the world's tallest wooden building. The statue's ears are 8.25 feet (2.5 m) long; its hands can hold 20 people. It weighs 5oo tons (455 m tons). Great thick wooden pillars hold up the structure. One of these in the rear of the temple has a hole through it, said to be