Horyuji-Temple in Winter

It's cold day

Horyuji-temple is the oldest woody building in the world that was built in A.D.607 by the Emperor Suiko and Prince Shotoku. Its site is about 187000 square meters. It was  registered the first  on UNESCO's World Heritage list in Japan that has about 2300 national treasures and cultural heritages .
It takes about 30 minutes to the southwest from Nara city by car.

The second gate and a five-storied pagoda-------pillars of Entasis style

I happened to find  this dragon ( this year's zodiac sign in Chinese astrology) under the roof of the main temple.

The main temple has "Syaka-Sanzon-Zo" (sitting Buddha statue)or "The Wall-Painting" or  "the canopy".We could see them well as the safety wire net was taken off during this term.
I thought the face of Syaka(Buddha) was longer.
The wall paintings painted by Bengala or so on  reminded me of the wall painting of Dunhuang　in Chaina or Ajanta in India  but regrettably it was disappeared by the fire, now they are replicas except few.
The canopy  has  the mood of Asian Minor  and flying celestial nymphs etc are painted on it.

A part of " the wall painting" restored (Image by NHK)

There was "Tamamushi-no-Zushi"(zushi means Buddhist altar. Tamamushi means a buprestid or a jewel beetle)　 inside a glass case for security. Though the doors of it were open, as it's a little dark, we couldn't see the reverse of the door well. A woman in charge wiping the glass case lighted the reverse of the door with her flashlight and as a next man was watching it with his small telescope, we borrowed  it. Thanks to a flashlight and a telescope,  we could see lots of small Buddhas on the reverse of the doors.
The woman said "let's take with a flashlight and a telescope ,not a camera when you go see the statue  of Buddhas."
 Kindly she fetched the specimen of a real Tamamushi( buprestid or jewel beetle).   I heard the lots of  wings of jewel beetles were mounted under the fretwork metal fittings of Tamamushi-no-zushi. I thought it must have looked like jewel. Now they disappeared, of course.

We learned about these national treasures in our junior high school students. But I saw them for the first time.
    

Tamamushi (Image by Mushinavi)

The fence of camellia

The second gate. Horyuji's heraldry on cloths

Why didn't birds eat this gorgeous feast?

A decoration of sacred straw rope of Cyuguji-temple(a part of Horyuji-temple).........It differ from our houses'

I was interested in "Kudara-Kannon-zou". This Goddess of Mercy is tall,thin and has a small head, so nice delicate  figure. I thought it's unlike that of an average  Japanese Goddess.

 Kudara-Kannon-Zou ( image by Wikipedia)

The real one is brownish (image by wikipedia)