Week VI: Part 2
Week VI: Part 2

ASIAN RELIGIONS AND ART: EARLY JAPANESE BUDDHISM

Key Work:

  • The Temple of Horyu-ji and the Shaka Triad (La Plante, Figures 22.2, 22.3, 22.4, 22.5)

    READING: La Plante, Asian Art, pp. 208-213.
    HISTORY:

    TERMS AND MONUMENTS:

    TIME LINE: (dedicated 670 A.D.)

    FURTHER READING:

    NOTES: What is the function of a Buddhist temple complex? What buildings are part of this group? How do they function?

    THE JAPANESE TEMPLE

    Horyu-ji is the oldest Buddhist temple in all of East Asia of which main parts have survived. It was founded in 607 and is a treasure house of immense value as an example of this early phase of art. One enters the temple-monastery complex through th e chumon, the gate on the south face of the encircling cloister, and finds to the left (west) a pagoda and to the right (east) the Golden Hall (kondo). Both are equidistant from the chumon and are simultaneously visible to the worshipper as he or she en ters. Instead of proceeding into the depths of the compound through a succession of buildings as was the custom in China, the pilgrim makes a lateral turn. This eschewing of linear penetration in favor of lateral movement is repeatedly met in Japanese s patial conceptions through history. The individual buildings of Horyu-ji are, however, typically continental (Chinese) in style. They stand on raised stone bases and are built on a bay system, with post-and-lintel construction, tile roofs, and elaborate bracketing designed to transmit the thrust and weight of the heavy tile roof down through the wooden member into the principle columns that support the structure. The kondo is oriented to the four cardinal directions with a strairway on each side leading to a double door.

    The interior of the hall is almost completely taken up by the platform and its cult statues, frequently numerous and of very great size. The main function of the temple hall is to enclose them, forming a shrine rather than an assembly hall for a com munity. A special hall on the north end outside the cloister was set aside for sermons and disputations. In the kondo are the images of the main cult statue of Buddha in a triad. This group is the spiritual center of a temple complex and is therefore m ost lavishly embellished: the pillars and beams are painted and gilded, the ceiling, in the form of a canopy, represents paradise or heaven. On each wall are paintings (damaged by fire in 1949) which represent Buddha and paradises of the cardinal directi ons. This program of statues and paintings in the kondo make the temple a terrestrial representation of Buddha's blissful realm. The sight of the gilded statues radiating the light of Buddha's wisdom and mercy is intended to inspire the believer. All t he figures combine in a mandala, the center of which - the center and axis of the cosmos - is occupied by Buddha seated on his lotus throne. In that way the temple is similar to a stupa. Such buildings were part of a faith which had grown and changed fr om its beginnings in the sixth century B.C.

    Buddhism was the first world religion known to history. From its main center of origin in northeastern India, it spread across vast areas of Asia, radiating outwards in all directions - except toward the west - bringing its universal doctrine of sal vation for all human and other living creatures, its philosophy and ethics, its learning and art. It bridged the differences between the rich and creative cultures of India, China, Japan and Southeast Asia. In the course of the first millenium A.D. Budd hism led to the rise of a great spiritual and cultural community with far-ranging and profound inner unity of spiritual consciousness, manifest in remarkable similarity in patterns of life and thought, and not the least in art.

    The faith grew to a national religion in India under King Asoka (269-232 B.C.) and by the second century A.D. missionaries had carried the tradition to northwest India and the provincial Greco-Roman world in Gandhara (Afghanistan). There new schools developed, called Mahayana, which taught that salvation was open to all people through faith and good works. Buddha in their view ceased to be primarily an earthly teacher, but was thought of as pure abstraction, as the "universal principle", the godhea d, from whom truth radiates with a blinding light across the universe. The Buddha reached far beyond the grasp of mortal beings, but there were approachable deities in this newer Buddhism, the bodhisattvas, ones destined for enlightenment who had earned the right to enter nirvana but postponed it in order to administer to the needy.

    Buddhism reached Japan in the middle of the sixth century from Korea after centuries of development in China. The introduction of Buddhism exerted a far-reaching effect on many aspects of Japanese life. The kami (spirits) of the native, nature rel igion of Japan were intensely important but had no specified forms or attributes. In contrast, principles of the Buddhist faith were expounded in Chinese texts and by a clergy, regiments of nuns and monks who performed minutely prescribed religions funct ions inside vast halls filled with the pungent smell of incense and with statues of the holy in human form. Buddhism chanelled silent and spontaneous interaction with the spirits into an organized program of ritual observance and explained the mysteries of life in a set of laws.

    The rise of Buddhism in Japan was accelerated during the life of Prince Umayado, better known by his Buddhist name of Prince Shotoku (Sagely and Virtuous). He was an avid scholar and learned statesman whose cultural activities effected Japanese civi lization substantively. Born into a court which had been receiving Buddhist images from Korea for twenty-one years and which was coming to terms with the new faith, Shotoku grew up in an atmosphere of cultural ferment. The pro-Buddhist Soga clan was act ively upholding their beliefs, but not without opposition by adherents to the native religion called Shinto. Buddhist chapels were burned and the statues were damaged. Soga no Umako (died 626), head of the powerful family, placed his niece on the throne as Empress Suiko (reigned 592-628) and ordered Prince Shotoku, then only nineteen years old, to act as Regent. Prince Shotoku attempted to centralize power and to unify the clan-chiefs whose rivalries had previously dominated Japanese life. He used as a model the Chinese court and thereby played a leading role in the absorption of Chinese aristocratic culture in Japan. Shotoku built his palace at Ikaruga and next to it a Buddhist temple over a Korean model. By 614, or fifty years after the presentatio n of the first Buddhist statue to Japan, there were 46 temples and 1385 ordained monks and nuns. After his death and during the struggle for power, both his palace and temple were destroyed. Shotoku's legacy, the primacy of learning and moral values, wa s so firmly implanted among the aristocracy and clergy, however, that the ruined temple was soon rebuilt and was called Horyu-ji.

    Buddhist sculpture preceded Buddhist architecture outside of India for images were brought in the luggage of missionaries, travellers and pilgrims across the great trade routes of Central Asia. Such icons were set up in shrines built in the traditio nal Chinese style and grew until the monastery or temple became a kind of palace with courtyards, pavillions, galleries and gardens. No attempt was made to imitate Indian temples and the stupa was tranformed into the pagoda, the multi-tiered tower which serves as a relic hall.

    The main image in the kondo at Horyu-ji bears the date 623 and is the work of a caster of statues named Tori, a descendent of Chinese immigrants. The Mahayana Buddhists believe that there will be an infinite number of Buddha's, all of them manifesta tions of the One Absolute Buddha. He was thought to be beyond the limits of human vision, but practitioners began to believe that one manifestation was revealed to the living and could therefore be represented. These images were to be used as aids to en able the beholder to understand existence beyond form and substance. The Buddha is represented with a serene and remote aspect, larger than life. He wears a monk's robe and is seated in the position of meditation. His elongated ears, the mark on his fo rehead and his hair all recall his noble birth. His attendants, the smaller bodhisattvas, are dressed in worldly costumes with crowns and jewels recalling their dedication to earthly affairs of the suffering. Buddha's frontal, seated pose, his dress, an d hand gestures (mudras) are all prescribed by tradition. This manner of presentation, so similar to prototypes from Korea, China and even India, speaks of an ecumenical tradition feuled both by the assimilative nature of Mahayana Buddhism and the econom ic and political asperations of the leaders who embraced the religion.

    FROM : Linduff, K.M., "The Japanese Temple: Horyu-ji", in Art Past/Art Present, by D. Wilkins and B. Schultz, New York, 2000, 4th ed.