Shomu's reign ran through smallpox, drought, famine and a serious rebellion. The epidemic of 735 to 737 is estimated to have killed a large share of the population and carried off all four Fujiwara brothers who dominated the court, and the state's response was framed as a religious one. In 741 the emperor decreed that every province should establish a monastery and a convent, the kokubunji and kokubunniji, each supported from provincial revenue, each housing a fixed number of ordained clergy, and each holding copies of protective scripture, above all the Golden Light Sutra, whose promise is that the four heavenly kings will guard a realm where it is recited.
The system did something no earlier patronage had. It made Buddhism an arm of provincial administration rather than a religion of the capital's aristocracy, put ordained clergy on the state payroll in every province, and tied the fortunes of the realm explicitly to the correct performance of Buddhist ritual. Scriptoria copying sutras on an industrial scale were part of the same apparatus, and the surviving manuscripts and their administrative paperwork are among the best documented evidence anywhere for how an early state ran a religious programme.
The head of the network was Todai-ji at the capital, Nara, and the emperor's own status inside it was carefully stated. In the edict calling for the great image he described himself as a servant of the Three Treasures, the Buddha, the teaching and the community, which places the sovereign beneath the religion rather than above it, an unusual formulation for a monarch whose own line claimed descent from the sun goddess. In 749 he abdicated and was ordained, the first Japanese sovereign to take Buddhist vows, and several of his successors followed.