Yakushiji Temple Coloring Pages

An Old Temple in Nara

Yakushiji Temple is a temple in Nara City, Nara Prefecture.
It honors Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha who heals sickness.
People say Emperor Tenmu started building it, praying for his wife to get better from her illness.
Later, when the capital called Heijo-kyo was built in Nara, it moved to where it is now.
It was chosen as a World Heritage site in 1998 as one of the "Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara."

The Main Hall and West Pagoda Come Back to Life

Many of the buildings at Yakushiji Temple burned down in a war fire in 1528.
For a long time, the Main Hall was just a temporary building.
So, many people helped raise money to rebuild it through Shakyo, which means copying holy scriptures and giving them to the temple.
Thanks to that, the Main Hall was rebuilt in 1976, and the West Pagoda was rebuilt in 1981, looking just like they used to long ago!

6 Roofs, but a Three-Story Pagoda

The first coloring page shows the Main Hall of Yakushiji Temple.
You can see how big roofs and small roofs overlap each other!
The second coloring page is the West Pagoda.
If you count the roofs, there are 6 of them!
But this is actually a three-story pagoda.
Each story has a small extra roof called a Mokoshi, which makes it look like there are 6 roofs.
The rhythm of the big and small roofs stacked one after the other is so beautiful!

Two Pagodas Side by Side

The third coloring page shows the East Pagoda and the West Pagoda standing on both sides of the Main Hall.
The East Pagoda is the only building at Yakushiji Temple that has been standing for almost 1,300 years, since the Nara period.
It is a National Treasure, and a big repair project that took about 12 years was finished in 2020.
Let's compare the old East Pagoda and the new West Pagoda!

The Yakushi Triad Inside the Main Hall

Inside the Main Hall, three Buddha statues called the Yakushi Triad are honored.
Yakushi Nyorai is in the center, with Nikko Bosatsu and Gekko Bosatsu standing on the left and right.
They are all National Treasures thought to be made about 1,300 years ago, and their shiny black look is so beautiful!
Even when the Main Hall burned down in the fire, these Buddha statues were saved and passed down to today.
Inside the newly rebuilt Main Hall, the Buddha statues from almost 1,300 years ago are still watching over people today!

The Pillars Are Vermilion, the Walls Are White

The pillars and handrails of the Kon-do Hall and West Tower are bright vermilion.
If you color them orange first and then layer red on top, you get vermilion!
Leave the walls the white of the paper to show a clear difference from the pillars.
Try coloring the window grilles in green.
The match of vermilion, white, and green is a classic look for temples in Nara.

The Roofs Are Gray, the Ornaments Are Gold

Let's color the roof tiles with gray or dark gray.
You can make the roof ornaments called Shibi at both ends of the Kon-do Hall roof and the sorin at the top of the towers look gold with yellow and ocher!
The wooden framing under the eaves has yellow decorative metal fittings here and there.

Color the Old East Tower Dark Brown

The 3rd coloring page, the East Tower, has faded over many long years and has turned dark brown and grayish brown.
If you color the West Tower vermilion and the East Tower dark brown, you can easily see the difference between the new tower and the old tower!
Line it up with the coloring pages for Horyu-ji Temple and the Five-Story Pagoda of To-ji Temple to compare the shapes of the towers.

Overlapping Roofs of the Kon-do Hall

On the 1st coloring page, the Kon-do Hall has big roofs and small roofs overlapping one after another.
If you color the big roofs dark gray and the small roofs a slightly lighter gray, you can easily see how they overlap.
If you color the wooden framing under the eaves neatly with vermilion and yellow, it will look super impressive!

The Sky and Pine Green

Color the sky a bright light blue to make the vermilion buildings stand out.
For the pine trees on the 2nd coloring page, layer dark green and yellow-green, and make the trunks dark brown.
If you color the lawn in front yellow-green, it turns into a bright summer scene of Nara!

Is the West Tower just a little taller?

People say that when the West Tower was rebuilt, it was made just a little taller than the East Tower.
Over many, many years, wooden buildings get a little shorter because the wood shrinks and sinks under its own weight.
They say it was built this way so both towers would be the exact same height hundreds of years later!

"Frozen Music"

The East Tower has big roofs and small roofs that stack together in a nice rhythm, so it is sometimes called "frozen music."
It means that the rhythm of music became a real shape and looks like it froze in place.
People say an American scholar named Fenollosa said this first, but no one knows for sure.

A temple rebuilt by copying sutras

The money to rebuild the Kondo (Main Hall) was collected from people who did Shakyo, which is copying Buddhist sutras by hand.
It started in the late 1960s, and so many people copied the sutras.
Everyone worked together in their own small way to bring the big hall back to life!

The heavenly maiden at the top of the East Tower

At the very top of the East Tower, there is a carved decoration called a Suien.
On it, you can see heavenly maidens carved into the metal, playing flutes and flying through the sky.