Founded in Kyoto in 669 and relocated to Nara in 710, this temple once boasted 175 buildings and was a political powerhouse. Fire and factional war reduced it to a dozen structures, but what remains includes genuine treasures. The five-storey pagoda, Japan's second tallest, has been a Nara landmark since 1426. The National Treasure Museum houses one of the country's finest collections of Buddhist art, including the iconic three-headed, six-armed Ashura statue whose haunting adolescent face has become an unexpected pop-culture sensation in modern Japan.