The Nara National Museum holds one of Japan's finest collections of Buddhist art, concentrated in the period from the sixth to the fourteenth centuries. The permanent collection covers painting, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, and metalwork from the temples of the Nara region — including pieces that cannot be viewed inside their home temples — displayed in a series of connected buildings that include a Meiji-era Western-style structure and a modern annex.
The museum's most famous event is the annual Shosoin Exhibition in autumn, when a selection of objects from the Shosoin imperial treasury is displayed for about two weeks. The Shosoin holds over 9,000 eighth-century objects — many from along the Silk Road, given to the temple after the emperor's death — and this is the only time most of them can be seen in person.