Celestial Being or Mutation? Great Buddha Hall at Todaiji Temple

Entering Great Buddha Hall in Todai-ji Temple in Nara, first you are welcomed by Great Buddha with the gestures of his hands.  The hand positions have religious meanings.  With his right hand in 施無畏-Semui position, he tells you "Do not be afraid. I will protect you". With his left hand in 与願-Yogan position, he tells you "I will grant all your wishes and prayers". 
 Great Buddha is called Vairocana in Sanskrit, meaning Shining Light of the Universe. He lights every corner of the universe without any shadows.  His light reaches all of the beings in universe to save them. He is the sun in the Buddhist  universe.

Once you come into Great Buddha Hall, you are already in his paradise. So, even the butterflies in front of Great Buddha are celestial beings and reside in his paradise.  As they are the celestial , they have  eight legs instead of six legs.

But over the past  ten years, these butterflies have been attracting attention of people specializing  in the development biology, and have served like the mascots or symbols for the research of homeobox genes. The homeobox genes play critical role in specifying the proper number and placement of segment structures ( such as legs, antenna, and eyes)  during the  embryonic development.  If the genes show abnormality, mutation will occur.

 When one development biologist visited Todaiji, he encountered these eight-legged butterflies.  "Homeotic Mutation!", he thought. And he chose one of the butterflies as the design for his book, "Master Control Genes in Development and Evolution: The Homeobox Story"in English , "ホメオボックス・ストーリー”in Japanese.  There he introduces the episode of the butterflies,  that more than one thousand years ago, the ancient Japanese might have been already chasing the clue of  the mystery of the  homeotic mutation.

"Very inspiring!", I heaved a deep sigh of amazement.   However, the present Great Buddha Hall is the third one which was rebuilt in 1709 since the hall was burnt down two times and rebuilt two times. So I am not sure whether the first Great Buddha Hall had eight-legged butterflies or not. I hope it had them. Imagine in the 8th century, an artist caught an eight-legged butterfly and took it as the celestial butterfly.  He soon decided to make bronze butterflies with eight legs to offer them to Great Buddha. More than 1000 years later, one development biologist came to Nara from the distant country.  He met  the eight-legged butterflies and connected development biology to the acient people in Nara,  transcending time.

I want  to ponder it, bathing in the lingering depth of  his idea.