Yakushi-ji

Yakushi-ji Review

The two pagodas that tower over Yakushi-ji Temple are an analogy of past and present Japan. Yakushi-ji's East Pagoda dates from 1285, and has such an interesting asymmetrical shape that it inspired Boston Museum of Fine Arts curator Ernest Fenollosa (1853-1908), an early Western specialist in Japanese art, to remark that it was as beautiful as "frozen music." Its simple, dark brown beams with white ends contrast starkly with its flashier, vermilion-painted 20th-century neighbor, the West Tower, built in 1981. For many, the new goes against the "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" principles of the old wabi-sabi aesthetic; but we think the contrast thrusts Yakushi-ji right into the 21st-century. Officially named one of the Seven Great Temples of Nara, Yakushi-ji was founded in 680 and moved to its current location in 718. From central Nara take either the Kintetsu Line train, changing at Yamato-Saidai-ji to Nishinokyo, or Bus 52 or 97 to Yakushi-ji; from Horyu-ji or Chugu-ji, take Bus 97 to Yakushi-ji-mae.