Shaka at Birth (Tōdai-ji)

[6] Celebrations of the Buddha's birth have been staged in Japan on the eighth day of the fourth month since Empress Suiko ordered that vegetarian feasts should be held in all the temples in 606.

[10] Earlier temple records and inventories of their treasures list kanbutsuzō or "images for sprinkling" at Hōryū-ji and Daian-ji, and early surviving examples include one dating to the Asuka period at Shōgen-ji (正眼寺) in Aichi Prefecture (Important Cultural Property).

[1] The elongated earlobes and spiral-shaped curls of hair, resembling snail-shells, are among the eighty secondary physical characteristics of the Buddha.

[6] The soft, rounded, "sweet-faced" features of the young Buddha have been likened to those of the celestial musicians on the roughly contemporary octagonal lantern erected in front of the Tōdai-ji Daibutsuden.

[8][9] The exterior has incised images of human figures, animals real and imaginary, birds, and butterflies, set against a landscape of flowers, grasses, shrubs, trees, mountain peaks, clouds, and pagodas.

[9][14] Images of hermits with banners riding on birds, barbarians in foreign garb astride Chinese lions, and hunters chasing tigers are similar to motifs found on metalwork in Tōdai-ji's celebrated repository the Shōsōin.