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The walls are all covered with the finest paintings in gold and lacquer. A moss-grown stone staircase leads down to the tomb where the Shogun sleeps. Nara is situated immediately to the south of Kioto. Here are many famous temples, pagodas, and torii, and here also is the largest image of Buddha in Japan, twelve hundred years old.
Now, O Bhima, how shall we repair to the sacred abode of Vaisravana, inhabited by the Siddhas? Vaisampayana said, "When that king had said this, an aerial voice spake, saying. 'Thou will not be able to go to that inaccessible spot. By this very way, do thou repair from this region of Kuvera to the place whence thou hadst come even to the hermitage of Nara and Narayana, known by the name of Vadari.
Thou art thyself well-acquainted with Dhananjaya, the son of Kunti. They that were Nara and Narayana in days of yore are now Arjuna and Kesava. Know then, O great king, who those brave and foremost of persons are. If thou believest in this and dost not mistrust me adopt thou a virtuous resolution and make peace with the sons of Pandu.
I have thus told thee, O Partha, what the distinctions are between my worshippers. Thyself, O son of Kunti, and myself are known as Nara and Narayana. Both of us have assumed human bodies only for the purpose of lightening the burden of the Earth. I am fully cognisant of self-knowledge. I know who I am and whence I am, O Bharata.
Is not this the story of a great hero? Many, many years ago there lived in Nara, the ancient Capital of Japan, a wise State minister, by name Prince Toyonari Fujiwara. They had been married by their respective families according to Japanese custom when very young, and had lived together happily ever since.
This seems to have been mainly a product of the political situation. At the palace of the retired Emperor in Nara the Inchu, as it was called the ambitious Fujiwara Nakanari and the Imperial consort, Kusu, were arrogating a large share of administrative and judicial business, and were flagrantly abusing their usurped authority. Saga did not know whom to trust.
The Dai Butsu at Nara is taller than the one at Kamakura. It is dissimilar to most of the others in the country in having a black face of a somewhat African type. This image is stated to have been erected in the year 750 A.D., and the head has, I believe, been replaced several times.
And beholding that river, and also the asylum washed by that river which was studded with many islands and which possessed banks of so much beauty, an asylum like unto that of Nara and Narayana laved by the water of the Ganga the king resolved to enter into that sacred abode.
How long also did Narada the son of Pramesthi, after his return from White Island and arrival at Vadari and meeting with the two Rishis Nara and Narayana, live there, and what conversations had he with them? What did those two high-souled and foremost of Rishis say unto him? It behoveth thee to say all this unto me!" "Vaisampayana said, 'Salutations unto the holy Vyasa of immeasurable energy.
For the first time after the building of this Buddhist monastery, the capital remained permanent, Nara being the imperial residence during seventy-five years. In A.D. 735, we read of the Kégon sect. Two years later a large monastery, with a seven-storied pagoda alongside of it, was ordered to be built in every province.
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