What is Nara?

Nara is where deer live.



And you're not allowed to bother them, because they're messengers of God, according to local beliefs. With the exception of getting their horns trimmed, they get a free ride from the populace and government, despite posing a nuisance to the Nara ecosystem.

You'd expect their exalted status to make them into dicks, but they're pretty well-behaved. They're not afraid of humans, but they're not confrontational either.



And they're cute when they're small.



But all that changes when you go to a local merchant and buy a packet of deer crackers. The deer will mess you up trying to get at those crackers. They don't bother the merchants who sell them, interestingly, which suggests a certain conspiratorial cunning on their part.



Anyway, the temple was the real reason I was in Nara. This temple boasts one really big Buddha, which is maybe less impressive than a thousand regular-sized Buddhas. The deer stop following you when you get close enough to the temple, even though nothing obvious is preventing them from coming closer; near to that invisible threshold, I saw one deer that I thought might actually be a messenger of God.

It was old, or at least adult, with a single milky-white blind eye, and bowed at my approach. Well, it lowered its head, anyway, and when I bowed back, it did it again. In keeping with my principle of not photographic deformed animals, I didn't take a picture of the half-blind old deer.



Once inside the temple, I piggybacked on an English-language tour, because who the hell's gonna stop me? Anyway, all I really remember was that the Buddha, or at least this Buddha, can hold twenty-two children on his hand, whenever he needs to rescue children. Personally, I thought Gamera was the go-to guy for saving children in Japan.



Anyway, this temple is big, big business. If you're familiar with Japanese temples, you might know that you can blow a lot of money there on charms and souvenirs. But the temple in Nara has the added tourist hook of holy deer, and holy deer do they ever milk that for all it's worth. There's deer dolls, deer puppets, and Domo-kun in a deer costume. Not a full-size domo-kun mascot, I mean, just a little figurine you can hang on your phone.

I get the feeling that the Japanese people have already made up their minds about how they're going to observe their religions, and how "seriously" they're going to take them, and there's not a lot anybody can do about it besides throw up their hands and make a profit. And if every religion sold themed domo-kuns and assorted trinkets in their front hallways, do you think we'd have more holy wars, or fewer?

If anything should be taken seriously, it's helping out your fellow man. By donating blood, for example. Help me out on this one, Japan.




That'll do nicely.