Todaiji Temple Great South Gate

Todaiji Temple Great South Gate: Chōgen's Kamakura-Period Main Gate

The Todaiji Temple Great South Gate (東大寺南大門, Nandaimon) is the two-storied main gate of Todaiji in Zoshicho, Nara City, Nara Prefecture, a work of the early Kamakura period whose frame was raised in 1199, designated a National Treasure in 1951.

The original Nara-period gate blew down in a storm during the Heian period. After the fire of 1180, the monk Chōgen, who led the rebuilding of Todaiji, put up the present Nandaimon using building methods imported from Song-dynasty China. The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that the completion date is unrecorded but that the gate was surely finished by the dedication ceremony of 1203; the temple says it was completed in 1203 together with its guardian statues.

How the Great South Gate Is Built

The Great South Gate is five bays wide with three openings, two stories high, under a hip-and-gable roof of clay tiles. Todaiji gives its height above the platform as 25.46 meters, and the 18 round pillars that run up to the roof timbers as 19.058 meters long.

Those pillars are the key. Instead of stacking one storey on another, the builders ran each pillar from base to roof. There is no floor between the levels, and the lower roof is a skirt fixed to the pillars. The deep eaves are carried on brackets inserted directly into the pillars and stacked six tiers high, and this stack of cantilevers is what makes the gate so striking from below.

The Agency lists many more traits of the Daibutsu-yō (Great Buddha style): a single layer of eaves with boards covering the rafter ends, fan-shaped rafters only at the corners, distinctive moulded beam ends (Kibana), no ceiling so that the structure stays visible, thick beams round in section, and plank doors hung in pivot blocks.

Why the Todaiji Nandaimon Is a National Treasure

The Todaiji Temple Great South Gate was first protected in 1897 under the Ancient Shrines and Temples Preservation Law and became a National Treasure in 1951. The Agency for Cultural Affairs praises it as a full statement of the Great Buddha style whose structural beauty deserves attention.

Chōgen's Kamakura-period Great Buddha Hall burned in 1567, so the Nandaimon is the best surviving evidence of what that hall looked like. The temple calls it one of the largest two-storied gates in Japan. Very few Daibutsu-yō buildings survive anywhere, and this gate is the one usually cited to explain the style.

The Guardian Kings of the Great South Gate

Facing each other across the passage of the Great South Gate stand two Kongō Rikishi (Niō) guardians, themselves National Treasures. According to the temple, Unkei, Kaikei and their workshop carved them in just 69 days in 1203; each stands a little under 8.4 meters. A repair between 1988 and 1993 turned up sutras and inscriptions inside the statues naming Chōgen and the sculptors, revealing that Jōkaku and Tankei also served as master carvers.

The figures face across the path rather than outward, behind wire mesh. You get the best view of each body by stepping back and looking at an angle rather than from the centre of the passage.

Once under the Nandaimon, look straight up. With no ceiling, you can follow the pillars and tie-beams all the way into the roof structure.

Visiting the Todaiji Great South Gate

The Todaiji Temple Great South Gate stands on the temple's main avenue and is open to walk through at any hour, free of charge. Coming from Nara Park, it is the first structure you pass.

The avenue between the gate and the Great Buddha Hall is busy with people and deer, so bicycles and motorbikes are not allowed on it; they must be left at the bicycle park southwest of the gate. Hours for the Great Buddha Hall and directions to the temple are on the Todaiji Temple page.