Nara

Two pale Nara-period clay statues from Tōdai-ji's Lotus Hall. Called Sunlight and Moonlight, they may in fact be Brahma and Indra. Now in the Tōdai-ji Museum.

The Bronze Ablution Basin of Todaiji, a National Treasure from the 8th-century Nara period, measures about 89.2 cm across — one of the largest surviving examples of its kind. Likely created for the 752 CE Great Buddha Eye-opening Ceremony, it held the baby Buddha figure during Flower Festival rituals at Todaiji.

At Yakushiji in Nara, a small eighth-century painting on hemp shows Kichijoten, goddess of fortune, raising a flaming jewel. It is shown only days each January.

The Kōdōji Temple Ruins in Mihama, Fukui mark a temple a local clan founded in the late 7th century, traced by excavation from founding to abandonment around 900.

The Nagato Province Coin Minting Relics, Nara-era coin moulds and crucibles from a Shimonoseki mint designated in 1964, are kept at the Kyoto National Museum.

At Kobe's Hakutsuru Museum, the National Treasure Daishomu is two Nara-period scrolls of the Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish, brushed in unusually large script.

A National Treasure at Kobe's Hakutsuru Museum: seventy-one scrolls of Nirvana Sutra commentary, fifty-four copied in Tang China, the rest later Japanese additions.

A mid-8th-century copy of the ten-scroll Sutra of Golden Light packed into two scrolls in tiny characters. A Kōyasan National Treasure with rare reading marks.

A National Treasure at Ryūkō-in on Mount Kōya: a Nara-period Lotus Sutra in oversized characters, annotated for reading by the Heian scholar-monk Myōsan.

Held on Mount Koya, these three handwritten scrolls of the core esoteric sutras carry rare Heian reading marks prized as evidence for the history of Japanese.

A bronze five-pronged vajra bell at Shochi-in on Koyasan, made in Tang China and designated in 1928. An esoteric Buddhist implement, paired with a vajra in ritual.

A Nara-period National Treasure at Sanboin, Mount Koya: eighteen hand-copied scrolls of the scripture behind bodhisattva Fukukenjaku Kannon and his famous statues.

A Nara-period scroll copied in 743 under Empress Kōmyō's patronage, preserving volume nine of an early Perfection of Wisdom sutra. Held at Ryūkō-in on Mt. Kōya.

A sandalwood shrine only 23 cm tall, carved in Tang China with twenty-five tiny deities and tied by tradition to the monk Kukai. A National Treasure on Mount Koya.

In 1987 a ruined eighth-century Kannon emerged from inside Dōjō-ji's secret statue. Faceless yet ancient, this wood-core figure may date to the temple's founding.

Dōjō-ji's North-Facing Kannon, shown once every 33 years, is a sheath carved in the Nanbokuchō era to enclose and protect an eighth-century image within.

A National Treasure of Japan, the Wang Bo Collection Volume 28 is the world's oldest surviving manuscript of poetry by Tang-dynasty prodigy Wang Bo (649-676). Brought to Japan via the Kentōshi missions and once preserved at Kōfuku-ji Temple in Nara, this remarkable scroll preserves verses lost in China for over a thousand years.