Art Festivals & Events

Around 9,000 treasures have been preserved since the Nara period (710–794) at the Shōsō-in, the repository at Tōdaiji in Nara that is unlike any other in the world. Memorializing his death in Tenpyō Shōhō 8 (756), Empress Kōmyō (701–760) made an offering of objects that had been beloved by her husband, Emperor Shōmu (r. 724–749), to the Great Buddha of Tōdaiji. These and other treasures, including offerings to Tōdaiji on the part of nobility and Buddhist ritual implements associated with the temple, are renowned in part for their extraordinary variety. Each year, a selection of these treasures is put on display for public view at the Annual Exhibition of Shōsō-in Treasures, the 73rd of which is held this autumn. It is an opportunity to experience treasures that have survived over 1,260 years firsthand, and in turn take in something of Tenpyō culture at its very height.