of this day. There was a splendid gathering of Buddhist notables from all over Japan as well as the rest of the Buddhist world, and it is reported that no less than ten thousand monks attended the ceremony, many of them from China and Korea and even India. The celebrations surpassed in splendor anything Japan had ever witnessed, and the Emperor and his court and even the humblest of citizens took part in the magnificent pageant.
The many opportunities offered to the artists and craftsmen, and the importations from T'ang China as well as the visits of Japanese artists to the Celestial Realm proved very stimulating to the arts. The result was such a flowering of creative activity, especially in the city of Nara, that this age is justly regarded as the greatest period of Japanese Buddhist art.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE NARA PERIOD
Of the many buildings erected during the Nara period, few remain today. At Tōdai-ji only the famous Imperial Repository, or Shōsō-in, which is built in a log-cabin style and located on the temple grounds behind the main hall, is of eighth-century origin. Even the lovely little Hokkedō, or Sanjugatsudo, was added to at a later date (it stands on a hillside to the east of the Great Buddha Hall), so today the original design can only be studied, from the back. None of the Nara buildings are left at the famous Hossō sect monastery of Kōfuku-ji, and at Yakushi-ji, another of the great temples of the period, the only structure of Nara date is one of the two pagodas. This is of particular interest not only for the intermediate stories which were added to the three main ones, but also because it is the only authentic building from the second half of the seventh century. The most important temple for the study of eighth-century architecture is Tōshōdai-ji, which at the time was part of Nara but today is outside of the city. At this temple, founded in 759 by the famous Chinese monk Ganjin, the great teacher of the Ritsu sect, both the kondo and the hpdo have been preserved, and although the pagoda and the surrounding cloister have perished, some of the smaller buildings such as the sutra repository and the treasure house have also survived.
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