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It is said that Todaiji Daibutuden where the Buddha is located is the
biggest wooden architecture in the world now. In fact there used to be two
Buddhas that were bigger than Todaiji Buddha. Hideyoshi Toyotomi and
Ieyasu Tokugawa who were great soldiers built those Buddhas. The one that
Hideyoshi had built was destroyed by an earthquake, the other one that
Ieyasu had built burned.
The real name of Todaiji Buddha is "birushanabutsu". It means "the
Buddha which is lightened broadly in hope of wisdom and mercy".
The size of the Buddha
- total height : 30 meters
- sitting height : 14.98 meters.
- face : 5.33 meters.
- eyes : 1.02 meters.
- nose : 0.5 meters.
- ears : 2.54 meters.
- weight : 250 ton.
It is made of gold (440 kg) and copper (499 tons) The Buddha has
special hair, like a spiral perm. In total, it has 966 balls whose
diameter are 18 cm and whose height are 30 cm each.
History
During the Tempyo period, people suffered from disasters and epidemics.
In 743, Shomu emperor issued a law that we should make a Buddha to protect
ourselves. He believed in Buddha's power could help us. 420,000 people
contributed and 2,180,000 people worked to build it. A lot of people,
2,600,000 in total, constructed the Buddha at that time. This number of
the people is nearly the half of the people in Japan at that time. It took
10 years to build the Buddha because of the disasters and riots.
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