Saidai-ji

Most people know Yamato-Saidaiji as the Kintetsu station where you change trains between Kyoto, Osaka and Nara. Walk three minutes out of the south exit and you reach the temple the station is named after, which was once the western twin of Todai-ji. In 764, as the rebellion of Fujiwara no Nakamaro broke, the retired Empress Koken vowed to make statues of the Four Heavenly Kings to pray for its defeat. She returned to the throne as Empress Shotoku later that year and had them cast in gilt bronze in 765, and a temple of more than a hundred buildings on about 48 hectares grew up around them.

Almost none of that is left. The halls you walk between today were rebuilt from the Edo period on, and the East Pagoda is a ring of foundation stones. A 1956 excavation found that its base had been dug as an octagon, which backs the old story that the pagodas were designed with eight sides before cost cutting made them square.

The chapter worth knowing is the monk Eison, who arrived in 1235 and rebuilt Saidai-ji around strict monastic rules and charity. Monks were forbidden alcohol, so in 1239 he shared tea instead of sake with local people, and that is where the Ochamori comes from. Tea is whisked in a bowl over 30 cm across and passed round, and the people beside you help hold it while you drink. Individuals can join only on ceremony days: 16 January, the second Sunday of April and the Saturday before it, and the first Sunday of November. Other days are for booked groups.

One 800 yen ticket covers the Main Hall, the Shio-do and the Aizen-do. In the Shio-do, the Four Kings are Muromachi-period replacements, but the demons squashed under their feet are from the Nara period, and I find them the best thing here. The Aizen Myoo in the Aizen-do, a red, six-armed figure only about 30 cm tall made in 1247, is a hidden image shown twice a year. English signs are few.