The is the of Tà Âdai-ji Temple in Nara, Japan. The building is in the azekura (log-cabin) style with a raised floor. It lies to the northwest of the Great Buddha Hall. The Shà Âsà Â-in houses artifacts connected to Emperor Shà Âmu (èÂÂæ¦天çÂÂ, 701âÂÂ756) and Empress Kà Âmyà  (å ÂæÂÂçÂÂÃ¥ÂÂ, 701âÂÂ760), as well as arts and crafts of the Tempyà  (天平) era of Japanese history.
The construction of the Tà Âdai-ji Buddhist temple complex was ordained by Emperor Shà Âmu as part of a national project of Buddhist temple construction. During the Tempyà  period, the years during which Emperor Shà Âmu reigned, multiple disasters struck Japan as well as political uproar and epidemics. Because of these reasons Emperor Shà Âmu launched a project of provincial temples. The Tà Âdai-ji was appointed as the head temple of these provincial temples. Emperor Shà Âmu was a strong supporter of Buddhism and he thought it would strengthen his central authority as well. The origin of Tà Âdai-ji's Shà Âsà Â-in repository itself dates back to 756, when Empress Kà Âmyà  dedicated over 600 items to the Great Buddha at Tà Âdai-ji to express her love for her lost husband, Emperor Shà Âmu, who had died 49 days earlier. Her donation was made over five times across several years, then stored at the Shà Âsà Â-in. During the Heian period, a large number of treasures, consisting of items and instruments used in important Buddhist services were transferred from a different warehouse called the Kensakuin to the Tà Âdai-ji.
After the Meiji Restoration, it came under the administration of the national government, and since World War II has been under the administration of the Imperial Household Agency. It is on the UNESCO register of World Heritage Sites as one of the Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara. It is also a National Treasure of Japan.
The building is in the Azekura Zukuri log-cabin style, with a floor raised to about . This is an architectural style that was mainly used for the construction of granaries and storehouses. Some distinctive features of this building style are the triangular, wooden beams that come together in the corners, as well as the fact that it was assembled without using any bolts nor nails. This could be slightly surprising for its height of , width of and depth of about . However, it was a logical and smart step. As a result of assembling the storehouse without bolts or nails, the structure became very flexible and able to withstand earthquakes, a phenomenon of nature with which Japan was already well acquainted during the Nara period. The Shà Âsà Â-in is also the only building to survive the Siege of Nara in the Heian period. The exact construction date is unclear, but construction works probably started soon after the empress's bequest in AD 756 and definitely were finished before AD 759, when the bequest items storage lists were complete.
Since the Shà Âsà Â-in was to be a repository for valuable objects, it was constructed to create a natural climate regulation system. This natural climate regulation system was created by elevating the floor to a height of 2.7 m. This made circulation of air underneath the building possible and protected the structure against humidity at the same time. In addition to this, during the first few decades after its construction, the triangular beams of the Japanese cypress might have functioned as a natural regulator of humidity and temperature. The artefacts themselves were stored away in chests made from cedar wood, which is known for its durability. These chests were 90âÂÂ110 cm long, 60âÂÂ70 cm wide and 40âÂÂ50 cm high. Not only the building itself but also these chests were elevated from the ground. All these adjustments made it possible to preserve the treasures in perfect state.
The Shà Âsà Â-in today holds around 9,000 items, excluding items that are yet to be classified. The treasures that were donated by Empress Kà Âmyà  were stored in the Hoku Sà  (Ã¥ÂÂÃ¥ÂÂ), the northern part of the Shà Âsà Âin. From the very beginning, this part of the Shà Âsà Â-in has been sealed by the imperial family. One was permitted to enter only with explicit permission of the imperial family Other sections are called Chà «sà  (ä¸ÂÃ¥ÂÂ, middle repository) and Nanà Âo (Ã¥ÂÂÃ¥ÂÂ, southern repository). Ninety-five percent of the fine arts and crafts in the Shà Âsà Âin were produced in Japan around the 8th century, with the remainder imported from the Tang dynasty, Central Asia, India, Iran, etc. during the same period. The designs of these Japanese and East Asian treasures show Iranian, Greek, Roman, and Egyptian influences due to cultural exchange via the Silk Road.
Although these collections are not open to the public, selections are shown at Nara National Museum once a year in autumn.
The objects and treasures that have been stored in the Shà Âsà Â-in can be divided into the following categories.
Generally considered separate from the treasures, the Shà Âsà Âin also preserved more than 10,000 documents, mostly from an eighth-century scriptorium. These documents contain diverse materials including censuses, tax records, and poetry. The vast majority of documents, however, record the day-to-day record keeping of a sutra copying office active, albeit under a number of different names, between 727âÂÂ776. The collection is perhaps unparalleled globally as a tightly focused eighth-century archival collection of manuscripts.
The documents were first rediscovered in the 1830s by an antiquarian scholar named Hoida Tadatomo. Hoida and his successors peeled individual sheets apart and reassembled them into new scrolls, disrupting the original organization of the documents. Print versions of most of the documents were published in the first twenty-five volumes of Dai Nihon komonjo beginning in 1901. Subsequent scholarship has allowed scholars to better understand how the scrolls were originally configured. They have also been digitized and are now publicly available for viewing.
Since 1994, the Imperial Household Agency's Office of the Shoso-in Treasure House, which is responsible for the administration of the repository, has been producing exact reproduction of ancient Nara textiles. Apart from the appearance and colour, care has been given to reproduce the production and weaving style. The silk is donated each year by Empress Masako, who personally runs the Momijiyama Imperial Cocoonery at Tokyo Imperial Palace.