TOKYO -- In the eighth century, the monk Ganjin famously needed six tries to cross the sea from China to Japan, where he established a new school of Buddhism and became the first abbot of Nara's Toshodaiji temple.
More than a millennium later, a treasure brought with the Chinese monk on that final crossing underwent a similarly harrowing journey -- stymied not by storms or pirates, but by the coronavirus pandemic. The painstaking efforts in a race against the clock to return it safely to the temple from the Shanghai Museum showcased the centuries-old bond between the two countries.
