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Buddhist monastery of the 7th century ad to first half of the 8th, in the valley of the Vakhsh River, 12 km east of Kurgan-Tyube, southern Tajikistan. During this early medieval period it belonged to Vakhsh (U-sha in Chinese sources), one of the 27 domains of Tokharistan. Excavations between 1960 and 1975 by the Academy of Sciences, Tajikistan, and the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, exposed the entire site; most of the finds are on loan to the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. The buildings, which covered an area of 100×50 m, were constructed of mud-bricks (c. 490×250×110 mm) and rammed earth, with walls surviving to a height of 5.5 to 6.0 m. The site comprised two square complexes linked by an enfilade of three rooms (see fig. (a)). The south-eastern complex or monastery (b) had domed cells (c) for monks, a hall or refectory (d), service quarters, store-rooms and a small sanctuary (e). An open courtyard in the centre had a fired brick path across it, linking the enfilade to the sanctuary. A corridor around the perimeter of the courtyard was divided into four right-angled sections by a deep iwan, or vestibule, in the middle of each side. One of these vestibules led into the sanctuary, the second into the meeting-hall, the third into the enfilade and the fourth to the monastery exit (j) and also on to a vaulted ramp (k) that originally gave access to the roof and the now lost second storey....

Buddhist monastery in a small valley on the left bank of the River Indus, c. 64 km west of Leh in Ladakh, India. Tradition attributes the monastery’s origin to the Tibetan scholar and temple-builder Rinchen Sangpo (ad 958–1055), the ‘great translator’, and although its buildings mostly date from the 11th century, the site is replete with his memory, from the ancient tree he planted to his portraits and images in the temples. A treasure-house of art, Alchi has been preserved because of its isolation from trade routes and the decline of its community, the monks of the Dromtön sect of the Kadampa order.

Ringed by a wall and votive chortens (stupas), the religious enclave (Tib. chökhor) comprises three entrance chortens, a number of shrines and temples, the Dukhang (assembly hall) with its courtyard and monastic dwellings (see Tibet §II, and Indian subcontinent: Architecture from the 11th–16th centuries...

[Paekka]

Korean painter. According to the Nihongi (Japanese Chronicles, 720 ce) he was a painter from Baekje (18 bce–668 ce), one of the Three Kingdoms (see Korea: History, culture, and patronage), who went to Japan with a group of Buddhist monks and architects in 588 ce in order to build temples there. Baekka is thought to have completed the wall paintings at Beopheung Monastery in Gangwon Province, which are not extant. The architecture of early Japanese monasteries reflects that of Baekje in layout and architectural elements (such as roof tiles). In addition, the name Baekje (Kudara in Japanese) occurs as part of names of temples and Buddhist statues. Thus, assuming that Baekka was responsible for the wall paintings, contemporaneous painting in Japan may reflect his style.

[Bazaklik]

Site in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China, 56 km north-east of Turfan. It is the site of the most outstanding complex of Buddhist cave temples in Khocho and is located in the steep side of an extensive terrace above the Murtuk River. At one time access to the caves was via free-standing timber buildings or terraces constructed in front of them, but by the time the caves were discovered by Albert von Le Coq at the beginning of the 20th century these were largely in ruins. In type the caves conform to those in the Kucha region (see Kizil; see also Eastern Central Asia).

The cave temples contained sculptures made of unfired clay, but it was mainly the wall paintings (removed by von Le Coq for safekeeping, few survive; see below) that in their unsurpassable diversity provided evidence of a flourishing Buddhist community. The most impressive were the paintings depicting consecration of a ...

[Asahiyama]

Japanese Buddhist temple in the city of Uji, c. 18 km south of Kyoto. It occupies 1.65 ha of woodland along the western bank of the River Uji. Its “mountain name” (sangō) and identifier prefix is Asahiyama.

Byōdōin is an independent temple affiliated with the Jōdo (Pure land) school of the Tendai sect of Esoteric Buddhism and has been in operation since the late Heian period (794–1185 ce). Its principal building, the Amidadō or hall for the worship of Amida (Skt. Amitābha), is called the Hōōdō (Phoenix Hall) and is widely recognized as exemplifying the type of religious art commissioned by the Heian period aristocracy, who were profoundly affected by the popularization of the Jōdo belief and praxis in conjunction with extended emphasis on the Lotus sutra (Jap. Hokkekyō or Myōhō renge kyō) as a salvational vehicle.

Uji has long been noted for its picturesque setting on the river. From at least the late Nara period (710–794) it also served as an important trade stop between Yamato and Yamashiro provinces (now Kyoto Prefect.). By the 9th century Uji had been developed as a “resort” for the villas (...

[Wu Daoxuan, Wu Tao-hsüanWu Tao-tzu]

(b Yangzhe [modern Yu xian, Henan Province]; fl. c. 710–740 ce).

Chinese painter. Later known as Wu Daoxuan, he is a legendary figure said to have depicted human beings, landscapes, architecture, Buddhist deities, demons, birds, and animals. Reportedly, he derived his inspiration from wine and had a mercurial, responsive brush style, producing breathtaking vistas of natural scenery and figures across vast areas of temple wall.

Hearing of his extraordinary talents, the Emperor Xuanzong (Minghuang; reg 712–756) summoned Wu to his palace at Chang’an (modern Xi’an). Between 742 and 755 the emperor dispatched Wu to the Jialing River in Sichuan Province to paint the scenery. On his return, Wu stated, “I have made no draft, but have committed all to memory.” He proceeded to paint the walls of the hall known as the Datong dian with 300 or more li (c. 150 km) of Jialing River scenery in a single day. Five dragons in the Inner Hall, painted by Wu on another occasion, supposedly had scales so lifelike that each time it was about to rain, they emitted misty vapors (the dragon symbolized imperial power over rain and irrigation). Contemporary accounts report that Wu covered 300–400 wall surfaces in Buddhist and Daoist temples in the two Tang-dynasty (...

[Teng-feng]

County in Henan Province, China, east of the city of Luoyang. The presence of Mt. Song (also called Mt. Xiaoshi, Mt. Songyue, or Mt. Songgao) means that the county is primarily known as a center of Buddhism. Mt. Song was a Buddhist sanctuary as early as the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 ce). When Emperor Xiaowendi (reg 471–499 ce) of the Northern Wei (386–534) moved the dynastic capital from Datong in northwestern Shanxi Province to Luoyang, the mountain was selected as an ideal place to establish Buddhist temples.

The Fawang Temple (Fawang si) is the oldest Buddhist sanctuary on Mt. Song, supposedly dating to 234 ce. It features a large, square, brick pagoda of the mid-8th century ce, fifteen stories and 40 m high, built in the same style as the Xiaoyan ta (Small Wild Goose Pagoda) in Xi’an. Other buildings in the Fawang Temple, including the Precious Hall of the Great Hero (the main hall), the Hall of the Four Heavenly Kings, and the Ksitigarbha Hall, date from the Qing period (...

[Tun-huang]

Site of Buddhist cave sanctuaries, usually referring to the Mogao caves, located 25 km southeast of the county town of Dunhuang, Gansu Province, China. In the wider definition Dunhuang also includes the Xi qianfo dong (Western Thousand Buddha Caves) and the Yulin caves at Guazhou to the southeast of the town of Dunhuang. From the 4th century to the 14th, the Mogao caves were continuously carved out in four or five tiers on the cliff face of an alluvial hill that faces east over the Dang River. At its height as a Buddhist complex in the 8th century ce, the complex is believed to have comprised more than 1,000 caves. At the Mogao site, a total of 492 caves with wall paintings and sculptures survive, the earliest of which date to the early 5th century ce. Despite the changing dynasties, the caves and the artworks continued to be added until the 14th century, and still survive in excellent condition. The artworks in the Mogao caves are important not only for their individual value, but also in that the evolution of Buddhist art in Dunhuang over 1,000 years can be traced in this single site. A hoard of old and rare manuscripts was also found in a small room in the Mogao caves, including the world’s oldest complete printed book (...

Japanese Zen Buddhist monastery of the Sōtō sect, in Fukui Prefecture. Eiheiji’s significance derives largely from the place in the history of Japanese Buddhism of its founder, Dōgen (1199–1253), and to his interpretation of Sōtō Zen monastic practice. After 1217 Dōgen joined the dominant Tendai school of Buddhism, but he grew disillusioned with Japanese Buddhism as a feasible human soteriology, although he was much attracted to the practice of Zen meditation. In 1223 he left for China, then under the rule of the Song dynasty (ad 960–1279), to practise Chinese Chan (Jap. Zen) Buddhism under the master Rujing (1163–1228) at Mt Tiantong. After his return in 1227 he advocated Sōtō Zen but was continuously harassed by Tendai-sect monks until he cleared donated land in 1243 in Echizen (western Japan) for the first Sōtō Zen monastery, Eiheiji (Monastery of Eternal Peace). At Eiheiji, Dōgen faithfully reproduced Chinese Chan Buddhism in two important ways: experientially, with daily meditation integrated into such basic activities as eating, walking, working, begging and washing, whereby enlightenment might be attained by the practitioner and by others; and architecturally, the buildings in the temple compound, each unique in structure and function, being tightly integrated into a working site for daily Zen discipline and arranged to fit into the topography of the forested hillside....

[HieizanjiHieizan EnryakukjiSanmon.]

Japanese Buddhist temple on Mt Hiei (Hieizan), north-east of Kyoto, in the city of Ōtsu, Shiga Prefecture.

Enryakuji was founded in ad 785 by the Tendai-sect patriarch Saichō [Dengyō Daishi] (767–822). Enryakuji is the head temple of the Sanmon branch of the Tendai sect, and, together with the Shingon-sect temple Kongōbuji in Wakayama Prefecture, it is one of the two principal seats of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism (mikkyō). Hie Shrine is its major tutelary Shinto shrine. Enryakuji occupies c. 4 sq. km on the slopes of Mt Hiei, a sacred mountain long worshipped as the abode of some of the main guardian deities of Kyoto. In the Heian period (ad 794–1185) it comprised 3000 buildings, and although these now number only about 70 it remains an imposing temple–shrine complex. It is divided into three compounds, called ‘pagodas’ (tō)—the Tōtō (East Pagoda), Saitō (West Pagoda) and ...

[dga ’ldan]

Site near Dagzê, c. 40 km east of Lhasa, Tibet. It was the principal monastery founded by Tsong Khapa (1357–1419) in the early decades of the 15th century, and it thereafter became a major sanctuary of the Gelugpa school of Buddhism that he established. Formerly an impressive monastery town with several hundred shrines and chapels and a population of over 5000 lamas, Ganden was utterly destroyed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–76). The monastery is still largely ruined, though some reconstruction has begun. The buildings that stand today all date from after 1980.

Ganden was built on the slopes of a hill with the buildings constructed in descending layers in a crescent shape. The heart of Ganden and its most important structure is Tsong Khapa’s Golden Tomb, the Ser Dung. This consists of several interconnecting buildings with high, tower-like superstructures and a courtyard; the inward-sloping walls are painted brown-red. This sanctuary contains several chapels with golden images of Buddhas and guardian deities. In the central chapel in the upper storey is Tsong Khapa’s tomb, a replica of the large stupa made of silver and gold in which the master was originally enclosed. Other main buildings include the Tri Dok Khang, where the abbot of Ganden lived. In a chapel on the second floor is kept a set of the ...

[Kung hsien]

Site in Henan Province, China, east of the city of Luoyang. A complex of five Buddhist caves, dating from the Northern Wei period (ad 386–534), is located on the south side of Mt Mang on the northern bank of the Yiluo River. The ground level along the river is higher than the ground level inside the caves by over a metre because of dirt accumulated from flooding. The construction of the caves, sponsored by the Northern Wei imperial family, took place between c. ad 505 and 526, starting with Cave 1. In addition, many small niches and inscriptions sponsored by other devotees were carved later on the outside of the caves and bear dates ranging from ad 531 to 1735.

Cave 1, on the far west, measures 6×6 m; caves 3, 4 and 5 are successively smaller in size, and Cave 2 is unfinished. All are square in layout and, except for Cave 5, have internal central pillars. The once coherent sculpted façade between caves 1 and 2 is now in a fragmentary state. Inside the caves, all surfaces are fully sculpted. The main Buddhist images occur in configurations of three or five, in niches occupying the centre portions of the west, north and east walls and the central pillars. The ceilings of caves 1, 3 and 4 are divided into squares by crossbeams, and each square is decorated with an ...

[rgyal rtse; Gyangzê]

Fourth largest city in Tibet, strategically located between Lhasa and Shigatse along the caravan route to India, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan. Gyantse is most famous for its fortress citadel, or Dzong, and its lamasery. The 15th-century fortress, situated on a hill overlooking the town, served as an effective buffer against invasions from the south for centuries until 1904, when it was partially destroyed and conquered by British forces led by Francis Younghusband. It suffered further damage by the Chinese in the 1960s. Although in poor condition, the fort still has significant traces of ancient wall paintings.

The complex of buildings within the old walls at Gyantse, often referred to as the Palkhor Choide or Pelkor Chode (dpal ‘khor chos sde) Lamasery, was founded in 1418 by Rabten Kunsang (1389–1442), a follower of Khedrup Je (1385–1438), himself a disciple of Tsong Khapa (1357–1419), the founder of the Gelugpa sect. The monastic complex was formerly much more extensive, but a number of buildings were dismantled during the 1960s. The main buildings have survived relatively intact, however. Chief among these and one of the most impressive buildings in all of Tibet is the ...

[Haḍḍa; Hilo]

Site of numerous Buddhist monasteries, 8 km south-west of Jalalabad, Afghanistan. It flourished from the 1st century bc to the 8th century ad. The ancient site, known as Hilo to Chinese pilgrims of the 5th–8th century, is partially covered by a modern village. The earliest archaeological reports were compiled by Claude-Auguste Court (1827), Charles Masson (1834) and William Simpson (1878–9). Masson excavated 14 stupas, primarily at Gundi Kabul (also known as Tepe Kabul and Tepe Safed). He also uncovered the stupa at Tepe Kalan (also known as Tapa-é-Top-é-Kalan, Tope Kelan and Bordji-i Kafariha). A French delegation excavated most of the remaining ruins, including Tepe Kafariha and Bagh Gai, between 1926 and 1928. In 1965 a Japanese mission investigated Lalma, 3 km south-west of Hadda. Tepe Shotor (also known as Tapa-é-Shotor) and Tepe Kalan were excavated by the Afghan Institute of Archaeology between 1965 and ...

[Hōryū GakumonjiWakakusaderaIkaruga no Tera]

Buddhist temple complex at Ikaruga, Ikoma District, Nara Prefecture, Japan.

Hōryūji is one of the oldest temples in Japan and is the head temple of the Shōtoku sect. Founded in the late 6th century ad by the regent, Prince Prince Shōtoku, and refounded in the late 7th century, it became a leading centre for Buddhist scholarship and the focus of the cult of its founder. Since the early 8th century Hōryūji has been listed as the most ancient of the Seven Great Temples of Nara (Nanto Shichidaiji). The complex occupies c. 9 ha of flat land south-west of Nara and is divided into two precincts: the Sai’in (Western Precinct), often referred to as ‘Hōryūji proper’, and the Tō’in (Eastern Precinct), known officially as Jōguōden (Halls of the Lord of the Superior Palace).

The buildings at Hōryūji include wooden structures of the late 7th century ad and the early 8th, which are the oldest surviving examples of their kind in Japan and are of prime importance for an understanding of the origins of ...

[Kūtaiji; Kūdaiji; Kubonji]

Buddhist temple and garden near Nara in the Sōraku District, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. It is a temple of the Pure Land (Jōdo) sect of Esoteric Buddhism. The present compound contains a honden (main hall), a pagoda and a pond garden. Alone among Pure Land temples, Jōruriji retains its original 12th-century garden designed to look like the Western Paradise. Temple records indicate that the temple was established in 1047 with the construction of a honden dedicated to Yakushi (Skt Bhaishajyaguru; the Buddha of healing). It was reconstructed in 1107 as a hall for the worship of Amida (Skt Amitabha; Buddha of the Western Paradise) and moved to its present position in 1157.

The Amida Hall (Amidadō) stands on the western side of the pond. It is a wooden post-and-beam structure in the yosemune zukuri (‘hipped-gable roof construction’) format, 11 bays long and 4 bays deep, and is the only extant example of a ...

[KarakhojaQočoChin. Gaochang]

Site 47 km south-east of Turfan in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China. The most important complexes of monasteries in the Khocho area are Idikutshahri, Lenger, Senghim and Bezeklik. To the west of the town is the Chinese necropolis of Astana. The earliest evidence of settlement in the area is that a ruler of the Tujue dynasty, probably of Turkish origin, had an inscription placed on a temple of Maitreya, the Future Buddha, in Khocho in ad 445. Chinese, Sogdians and Tokharians also lived here between the 5th and 7th century. Khocho was occupied by forces of the Tang dynasty in 640. A brief Tibetan interregnum (c. 790–843) ended when the Uygurs established their kingdom here. From the evidence of their manuscripts and art objects, the Uygurs not only observed the Buddhist cult but also practised Nestorian Christianity and Manichaeism (see also Eastern Central Asia). Khocho was surrounded by a rectangular wall 2.3 km in circumference and 15–20 m high. The ruins of the town—apart from tombs, the buildings found here were almost all religious (Grünwedel)—were linked by road lines....

[Kinbusenji; Kinrinji; Kinrinnōji; Zaōdō]

Japanese Buddhist temple complex in the district of Yoshino, Nara Prefecture. It lies in the Kinpusen, a chain of foothills that extends between the Yoshino and Ōmine mountains.

Kinpusenji was traditionally founded by the semi-legendary ascetic En no Ozunu (En no Gyōja; fl late 7th century ad–early 8th), but it was more probably established later in the 8th century as a seat for the increasingly popular ascetic movement, Shugendō. It may have been founded by Gyōki (ad 668–749), a monk from the temple Tōdaiji in Nara. With the arrival in Kinpusen of Shōbō (ad 832–909), a Shingon-sect monk who founded Daigoji, Kinpusenji emerged as the centre of Shugendō (see Japan §II 7.), an eclectic form of worship that combines elements of Shinto and Esoteric Buddhism, notably mountain worship and asceticism. It is said that the ferocious Zaō Gongen, the tutelary deity of Shugendō—believed by devotees to be capable of suppressing all evil—appeared in the Kinpusen, and he was chosen by En no Ozunu as the appropriate form of the historical Buddha (Jap. Shaka; Skt Shakyamuni) for manifestation among men; the famous cherry trees of the Yoshino Mountains are still believed to be the sacred abode of Zaō Gongen. The present temple is a modest ensemble of about 40 buildings, mostly modern reconstructions, covering ...

[Qizil]

Site of Buddhist monastic complexes c. 40 km north-west of Kucha on the upper reaches of the Muzart River in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China. So far 227 caves have been uncovered. They are in a wall of rock pierced by a ‘Great Gorge’ in the western third of the complex and two ‘small’ gulleys to the east. At the end of the main terrace of the complex of caves a narrow path below the Devil’s Caves (nos 198 and 199 in the Chinese numerical system) leads north-east along the edge of the mountain to the ‘second’ and ‘third’ complexes.

Because they are so well preserved the temples can be unhesitatingly assigned to four definite architectural categories. Type 1 is what is known as the pillar-temple, consisting of a square or rectangular cella with a pillar forming the back wall. The cult image stands on a pedestal in front of the pillar. On either side there are corridors leading into a transverse passageway and into the mountain; these are used in the ritual transformation (Skt ...

[Kōya, Mt; Kōyasan; Kōyasanji; Kōyasan Kongōbuji]

Japanese Buddhist temple and shrine complex in Ito district, Wakayama Prefecture. Lying about 70 km south of Osaka on Mt Kōya (Kōyasan), a plateau on the eastern slope of the Takamine range, it was founded in the 9th century ad as the headquarters of the Shingon sect (see Buddhism §III 10.) and is one of the two main centres of Esoteric Buddhism (mikkyō) in Japan (see also Enryakuji). At Amano Jinja (Amano Shrine) on the north-western flank of the uplands, Niu Myōjin and Kōya Myōjin, the chief Shinto tutelary deities of the complex, are enshrined. The complex now occupies c. 12 sq. km of hilly terrain, encompassing some 125 structures and housing important art works.

Kongōbuji’s founder, Kōbō Daishi (see Kūkai), had spent the years 804–6 in China studying the system of tantric belief that was to be the basis of Shingon teachings and was seeking a suitable location to perform the religious exercises and Esoteric rituals required by these beliefs. In 816 he received from Emperor Saga (...