Clay Statues of Nikko Buddha and Gekko Buddha (located in

The Two Quiet Figures of Tōdai-ji

Two clay figures stand side by side, each a little over two meters tall, palms pressed together at the chest. Their robes were once painted in vermilion, green and blue; most of that color has long since flaked away, leaving a pale, almost translucent surface of bare clay. For more than twelve centuries these two stood in the dim interior of the Hokkedō, the oldest hall at Tōdai-ji in Nara, flanking the towering central image. Today they keep their composure in a climate-controlled gallery a short walk away, where visitors can finally meet them at eye level.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs registers them, with deliberate caution, as the Standing Statues of the Sunlight and Moonlight Buddhas (clay), formerly of the Lotus Hall. The hedged wording is a clue. Almost everything about these two sculptures, from their identity to their original placement, has been argued over by scholars for generations.

What They Are, and Where They Came From

Both works date to the Nara period (8th century), the height of the Tenpyō era, when the capital and its great temples were being raised on an imperial scale. They are made of clay (sozō): a wooden core wrapped in rope and straw, then built up in layers of increasingly fine earth and modeled by hand, never fired. Clay sculpture allowed a sculptor to work the surface like a painter works a canvas, catching subtle shifts in a cheek or the fall of a sleeve.

What makes the pair unusual is that almost every other major image in the Hokkedō was made by the dry-lacquer method, in which layers of hemp cloth are built up over a mold and hardened with lacquer. Only these two and the famous Shūkongōshin guardian were modeled in clay. That difference in technique has fed a long debate over how, and when, the two figures came to join the rest of the group.

For most of their history they stood on the octagonal double pedestal of the Hokkedō, one on each side of the principal image, the great dry-lacquer Fukūkenjaku Kannon. In 2011, when Tōdai-ji opened its museum with room-level seismic isolation to protect fragile works, the pair was moved there along with several other treasures. They have been on permanent display ever since.

A National Treasure, and the Puzzle of a Name

The two sculptures were first protected as a National Treasure under the old system in 1897, and re-designated under Japan's postwar Cultural Properties Protection Law on 29 March 1952. Their artistic stature has never been in doubt. The question is what, exactly, they represent.

The names attached to them, Nikkō (Sunlight) and Gakkō (Moonlight), are problematic. These two bodhisattvas are properly the attendants of Yakushi, the Buddha of Medicine; there is no other known case of them serving as companions to a Kannon image. The earliest record calling them Nikkō and Gakkō dates only to the Genroku era (1688–1704), more than nine hundred years after they were made. Look closely and the figures themselves seem to argue against the label: they wear the robes of Chinese-style nobility with the hair bound up, one shows what may be a fragment of armor at the collar, and both wear shoes. That appearance points instead toward Bonten and Taishakuten, the Indian deities Brahma and Indra. Many specialists now lean toward this reading, though the temple has long passed the figures down under their traditional names, and the matter is not settled.

The original placement is debated too. Because the clay technique sets the pair apart from the lacquer images, some once doubted that clay statues belonged in the Hokkedō at all. Recent examination of the central octagonal pedestal turned up traces suggesting that clay figures had once stood upon it, which weakens that objection without fully resolving where these particular two began their lives.

What to Look For

Seen together the two appear almost identical, but the difference reveals itself in the carving of the robes. On the figure called Nikkō, the drapery folds are many and the ridges swell and recede with real force, giving the body a sense of motion. On the one called Gakkō, the folds are fewer and softer, and the effect is stillness. The pairing of movement and calm is one reason the sculptures have drawn admirers for centuries; the writer Kazuichirō Kamei praised them at length in his classic essays on the old temples of Yamato.

Notice the eyes. The long, narrow lids of both figures closely echo those of the central Kannon they once stood beside, which has led scholars to suspect a single hand or a single workshop behind all three. The loss of pigment, often a sign of damage, here works in the sculptures' favor: stripped of paint, the modeling of the clay shows plainly, and the surface has taken on a clean, austere whiteness that suits the gesture of prayer.

Photography is not permitted inside the museum, so this is a place to slow down and look rather than shoot. The second gallery was designed to recall the interior of the Hokkedō, which gives some sense of how the figures once stood in the half-light of the hall.

Around Tōdai-ji

The museum sits inside the Tōdai-ji cultural center near the temple's main approach, so it pairs naturally with the rest of a day on the grounds. The Great Buddha Hall, with its colossal bronze Vairocana, is a few minutes away, and a combined ticket covering both the hall and the museum is usually available.

The Hokkedō itself, also known as the Sangatsudō, still stands and can be entered; ten of its original images remain in place around the principal Kannon, so a visit lets you see where the two clay figures spent most of their history. Anyone drawn to Nara-period clay sculpture should also seek out the Four Heavenly Kings once kept at the Kaidan-dō, another celebrated group in the same fragile medium. Wild deer roam the surrounding park freely, and the walk between sites passes through some of the oldest sacred ground in the country.