- Sumimasen Staff
The Basics of Japanese Architecture~Buddhist Temple~II
Updated: Apr 10
One question,
Do you know the following #Buddhism sects?
南都仏教 #Nara Buddhism
密教 #Esoteric Buddhism
禅宗 #Zen Buddhism
浄土真宗 #Truepureland Buddhism
Well, it’s ok to stay ignorant about that, it’s just some specialized terms.
Layout of the temples differ based on their respective Buddhism sects,
Additionally, there are some components
that mainly form the Temple
金堂 Main hall
講堂 Lecture hall
仏塔 Japanese stupa
中門 Inner gate
南門 Outer gate
僧坊 Monk dormitory
It’s said that In the beginning of Nara Buddhism, Japanese #stupa（仏塔）once set at the center of the of temple land,
eg.
#Asukatemple and #Shitenoji temple
see they are all set at the center.
More and more marginalized as the time goes by,
Meanwhile, the main hall（金堂） is more and more important,
Todaiji temple has 2 stupas
As #Heian era came along，Esoteric Buddhism became the mainstream, Buddhist clergymen transferred their ground to remoted, thickly forested mountains, they broke some allocation rules in the past and got started to follow the topographical logic to build the temple.
True pure land Buddhism was very popular among the common people,since late Heian era. Instead of 金堂, they put 阿弥陀仏堂 as the most important role, hence, 阿弥陀仏堂 is their main hall, meanwhile they have another main hall, it's called 御影堂, therefore many double main hall temples came out~actually I don't know why common people prefer to dedicate themselves to True pure land Buddhism, maybe less requirements and easier theory~
The last one, maybe you have ever heard of it, #Zen, with the rising of #Samurai class in #Kamakura era, it became more and more notable. Zen is some kind of package, with Japanese Garden, tea ceremony, and Samurai spirit…they are all in one package~with the name of Japanese culture. We can
find that in Zen Buddhism temple, garden is definitely necessary, and usually, there's a sub-temple as well.
See you guys next time!
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