Topic > The Great Buddha: The History of Building

From the 7th century, Buddhist culture spread to Japan and came from China. Temples were built all over Japan to hope for the peace and tranquility of Japan. This time it was called Tenpyo Culture and it is a beautiful aristocratic and Buddhist culture. At that time there were many problems threatening people, for example, drought, famine due to crop failure, epidemic tendency, natural disaster and so on. These are the main reasons for building temples. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In 724, Emperor Shomu ascended the throne and after 4 years got a crown prince, but died before he turned 1 year old. Furthermore, Emperor Shomu had the other misfortune that Nagayano-ookimi, who Emperor Shomu gave a lot of credit to, committed suicide. For these reasons, Emperor Shomu decided to build the Kokubun Temple and Kokubunni Temple in Japan. Emperor Shomu Konkoumyokyo was believed to be a kind of Buddhist sutra. This includes meaning; Buddhism will protect this country: Japan. That is why Emperor Shomu chose this Buddhist sutra. The official name of the Great Buddha of Nara is 東大寺盧舎那仏像 in Japanese. The word 盧舎那仏 means absolute Buddhist who resembles the world and is a reverend existence. In 743, Emperor Shomu gave the order to build a Great Buddha. This order was called Mikotonori in Japanese. In the construction process, a person called Gyoki worked hard on it. He was a Buddhist monk of virtue. He helped build bridges or temples in many places. Thanks to Gyoki he was able to collect materials such as many woods or much gold and copper from all over Japan. It has been 9 years since Emperor Shomu showed Mikotonori, the Great Buddha of Nara was completed, however, its director Gyoki could not look at it because he had died in 749. After completing the construction of the Great Buddha, the people began building the Colossal Hall of the Great Buddha. It was built in 758. The official name is Todaiji-Kondo and this is the largest wooden architecture in the world. There were many accidents, and the Great Buddha and Todaiji-Kondo were shot and broken over and over again. People put them back together every time, however, it was impossible to repair them like the original ones, so the size became much smaller. More than 1200 years ago, each of them was much larger than today. Until the Edo period, the Great Buddha and its Colossal Hall had remained unrepaired. In the same era, there was a monk called Kokei who started walking all over Japan and collected money to repair the Great Buddha and his Colossal Hall. Thanks to his and the government's support, he was able to raise a sum of money equal to approximately one billion yen. Eventually, they managed to repair the Great Buddha and Colossal Hall in 1692. Keep in mind: this is just one example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Overall, it is said that people needed get a lot of funds and materials to repair the Great Buddha and his Colossal Hall at any time. While there was a civil war, it was difficult to continue thinking about rebuilding them, and there was a time when a part of the Great Buddha broke and fell to the ground. People must have felt relief when they finally succeeded in reconstructing the Great Buddha of Nara.