Hōryū-ji

Interesting facts

Inside the pagoda, the central pillar reaches three metres below the great foundation stone, where a relic believed to be a fragment of the Buddha's bones is enshrined.

Only about 15 to 20 percent of the Kondō's original seventh-century timber survived the 1949 fire; the charred beams are kept in a fireproof storehouse for research.

During the Second World War large parts of the temple were dismantled and hidden in the hills around Nara for safekeeping.

The Tamamushi Shrine, only 226 cm tall, is the oldest surviving shrine of its kind in East Asia, painted with a bodhisattva offering himself to a starving tigress.

The Kudara Kannon, a 209 cm figure in camphor wood, first appears in a record of 1698 that claims it came from Baekje but was made in India.

The Guze Kannon is 197 cm tall, said to be Prince Shōtoku's own height, and its halo is fixed by a nail driven straight through the head.

The four wooden Guardian Kings standing around the Shaka Triad are the oldest statues of their kind in Japan.

In 1878 the temple gave more than 300 treasures to the Imperial Household; they are now held by the Tokyo National Museum.

The temple's full name, Hōryū Gakumonji, means Learning Temple of the Flourishing Law: it served as both a seminary and a monastery.

Today the temple holds more than 180 objects designated as National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties.

Why it is worth it

The wooden halls of Hōryū-ji have been standing for some thirteen centuries. Its Golden Hall (Kondō) and five-storey pagoda are among the oldest surviving wooden buildings anywhere in the world, and in 1993 the temple, together with nearby Hokki-ji, became Japan's first UNESCO World Heritage Site as the Buddhist Monuments in the Hōryū-ji Area.

The temple was founded by Prince Shōtoku, the great early patron of Buddhism in Japan, and the first complex was completed by about 607, dedicated to Yakushi, the Buddha of healing. According to the Nihon Shoki chronicle, it burned down after a lightning strike in 670. The rebuilt temple, set slightly to the northwest of the original and finished by around 711, is the one that stands today. Tree-ring dating has shown that the central pillar of the pagoda was cut from a tree felled in 594, and that some timber of the Kondō predates 670. Its builders drew on architecture from the Korean kingdom of Baekje and from China, and the result has features found nowhere else — such as the striking narrowness of the pagoda's top storey. The pagoda rises 32.45 metres; the two-storey Kondō measures 18.5 by 15.2 metres, its lower roof doubled in the Nara period to carry the deep overhanging eaves.

The complex has two precincts. The western one, Sai-in, holds the Kondō, the pagoda and the middle gate with its swelling columns. The eastern one, Tō-in, stands on the site of Prince Shōtoku's own palace and is centred on the octagonal Yumedono, or Hall of Dreams, built in 739. The temple's treasures form a rare record of Asuka-period art: the bronze Shaka Triad dated 623 and attributed to the sculptor Tori Busshi, the slender camphor-wood Kudara Kannon, the Tamamushi Shrine once decorated with iridescent beetle wings, and the gilded Guze Kannon, kept wrapped in hundreds of metres of cloth until the American scholar Ernest Fenollosa, cataloguing Japanese art for the government, had it uncovered. A fire during restoration work on 26 January 1949 badly damaged the Kondō and its Asuka-period murals; the paintings seen today are reproductions made in 1967, and the anniversary is now Japan's day for protecting cultural property from fire.

Hōryū-ji stands in the small town of Ikaruga in Nara Prefecture, on the plain between Nara and Osaka where Prince Shōtoku once had his palace.

Getting there

The temple is in the Hōryūji district of Ikaruga. Hōryūji Station on the JR Yamatoji Line, which connects Nara with Osaka, lies south of the temple grounds. The nearest airport is Osaka Itami (ITM), about 33 km away.

From the encyclopaedia

Hōryū-ji is a Buddhist temple that was once one of the powerful Seven Great Temples, located in Ikaruga, Nara Prefecture, Japan. Built shortly after Buddhism was introduced to Japan, it is also one of the oldest Buddhist sites in the country. Its full name is Hōryū Gakumonji (法隆学問寺), or Learning Temple of the Flourishing Law, with the complex serving as both a seminary and monastery.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Hōryū-ji

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia