Die Architektur der Kultbauten Japans

With the arrival of Buddhist monks and scholars in the 6th century, the Chinese architecture of the Sui Dynasty also came to Japan. The style of the newly constructed Buddhist temples was to have a lasting impact on Japanese architecture. The primary building material during the Asuka and Nara periods was wood. These structures have been repeatedly destroyed by fires and natural disasters, yet a few temples have remained at least partially intact in their original form. More importantly for the preservation of the architecture from this era is the fact that many buildings have been faithfully reconstructed over the centuries, which has allowed much of the knowledge of construction techniques to be retained. The oldest Buddhist structures in Japan and the oldest surviving wooden buildings in the world are located at Hōryū-ji in the southwest of Nara Prefecture. They are the most outstanding example of architecture from the Asuka period. The 41 buildings of the temple complex were built in the 7th century as a private temple by Shōtoku Taishi. Buddhism gained increasing influence in Nara, and the monk Kūkai (774-835) traveled to China to study Tantra or Vajrayana in Xi'an. Upon returning to Japan, he founded Shingon-shū. At the center of this teaching were mandalas, diagrams of the spiritual universe, which also influenced temple construction. Japanese Buddhist architecture also adopted burial mounds known as stupas and their Chinese development, the pagoda. Illustrated with 329 black and white images. Reprint of the original edition from 1907.