Todai-ji Temple; the magnificent hope in the most severe time after a horrible epidemic

So far a lot of travelers visit Todai-ji Temple continually. They enjoy seeing the large historical statue of Buddhism and giving food to deer in Nara Park near the temple. It looks like a peaceful scene.
However, COVID-19 is altering the world extremely. Several thousand people in the world are dying due to it everyday. Many of the people on the earth are forced to stay home. Now few people visit there.
Meanwhile, the core desire of this Buddha since the beginning is to cherish people and to guard people from epidemic. If you knew the episode of building the temple, you would become more interested in the temple.

The chronicle of establishing the temple

The most important key person of the temple was Emperor Shomu. He was born in 701, when the first significant law “Taiho-ritsuryo” in Japan, which was learned from the law in China, was regulated by Emperor Tembu. And Shomu was the great grand-child of Tembu. Ultimately, we can say that Shomu was raised in the atmosphere of the growing up as a nation. However, when he was growing up in the governance of the Fujiwara family who had historically governed Japan instead of emperors, he might not have much freedom in his behavior and thoughts.
He became the forty fifth emperor in 724 and abdicated the throne in 749. His 25-year-enthronement between the first and the abdication, especially the latter, was in very severe, he was absolutely one of the most agonized emperors.
A big earthquake devastated Japan in 734. And not far apart, drought and famine struck Japanese people. The people were overwhelmed by those disasters. However, those were only the gong of the beginning.
In 735 an epidemic of smallpox occurred in Fukuoka city, Kyushu island which is west of the capital in Nara. The average of death by smallpox in old times was 20 percent to 50 percent of infected people. Of course nobody at that time knew it. The epidemic spread across the island rapidly, and instantly invaded to the east. For Japan the epidemic of smallpox was the first experience, then the people and the government had no ways against it and many people died. In 737 the epidemic assailed the government. The then main four top bureaucrats who supported Shomu were killed. Shomu lost his governing hands, but he chose another person not from the Fujiwara family but from the imperial family, and he tried to restore the suffering situation. Totally more than 1 million people died of the smallpox and it is said that the number was 25 percent to 30 percent of the then population.
In 740 a coup by another one of the Fujiwara family occurred. Shomu was evacuated from the then capital, Nara. And he established the next capital in kunikyo, present-day Kidzugawa city.
At that time there was a tendency that disasters were generated under the bad mind of the top leader. Shomu was honest, then he thought that he was responsible for those disasters.

To save Japan

He believed in Buddhism since his youth. And he thought that salvage by the energy of Buddhism was necessary to save Japan in facing the national crisis. In 741 he issued the law of establishing each national temple in every region. Furthermore, in 743 he issued the law of establishing the Buddha statue of Rushana, the statue in Todai-ji Temple. However, the budget to build the temple must have been larger than a possible distribution from the then budget of a financial year of the nation. Probably many bureaucrats couldn’t support him because bureaucrats must have claimed that the government couldn’t afford to build the temple. Likewise, they disliked non-rational thinking that unmatched the economy and policy along the then political system at every time. Contrarily, the people were fade up with producing rice, it was the most important and largest industry at that time. The then system of ownership was near communism, then farms that the people developed by themselves had to be returned to the property of the government after their three generations’ occupation. Shomu might have thought that collaborations with the people was necessary to rebuild the nation and motivation of the people were absolutely necessary, so then he decided to regulate the law of eternal occupation of developing farms. That was the big change in the stance of the government since the law in his birth-year, Taihorituryo. Many bureaucrats with their conservative thinking of governance might not have supported him. We can glimpse in the historical facts that he changed his capital two times after Kunikyo, at last he returned to Nara.

To build Todai-ji Temple

At that time bureaucrats thought that Buddhism was for the nation and the belief in Buddhism was for exalted positions not lower than bureaucrats. Meanwhile, there was a priest who taught Buddhism to the people and saved the people. His name was Gyoki, and he was a popular among the people but executive priests hated him and exiled him from the main society of Buddhism in Japan.
In this situation Shomu became interested in Gyoki, who might have been useful to gain the cooperation of the people to build Todai-ji Temple. Though there weren’t any notifications, the pressure from the opposing bureaucrats and executive priests probably tried to mold Shomu in the old frame. However, Shomu couldn’t help but ask Gyoki to help him to build the temple.
It is said that Gyoki went around Japan to ask the people for the big support. According to the note, 51’900 people gave wood materials and 1’665’071 people worked to carry them, in addition 372’075 people gave gold and copper metals and 514’900 people worked to carry them. The population of Japan at that time was nearly 3 million after the loss of 1 million deaths by the epidemic, then those number of supporters show that almost all adults joined the efforts to build the temple. The people were in excruciating pain losing a loving one, the bureaucrats were in confusion, as well as of course Emperor Shomu was in agony. Writing repeated, there was no political literacy like showing the prestige of the emperor by building Todai-ji Temple. Accomplishing the temple was probably in hope to save the nation for the people.
The characteristics of Emperor Shomu weren’t much noted, but I think that he was not a powerful leader to control the bureaucrats and the people. He had honesty and more likely a weak mind, so then the difficulties above agonized him over and over again. He believed in Buddhism, so it is doubtless that his belief triggered him to build the temple. In addition, he had a cooperative mind with the people. This mind might have attracted Gyoki, at last almost all the people helped Shomu behind Gyoki. The number of the people who helped on the project is a miracle, I think. On the other hand, I can’t understand why he, who was an emperor under the system refined by the Chinese Imperial view, had such equality. Probably the equality must not seek for an answer in his natures but must seek in the basic thoughts for all ancient people in Japan.
In 751 the temple was established in 6 years after his abdication. The ceremony of the establishment was held magnificently. He was alive at the time, what did he think of the accomplishment of the unprecedented project? I don’t know but you will be able to imagine his inexpressible feeling, but I have no doubt that Shomu made the nation escape from the dangerous situation. In 749 he ended his life watched over by his lovely wife, Empress Komyo.