ture of a Lamaist Buddhist temple compound in China is the
bulb-shaped pagoda known as a dagoda, often painted white.
The Lamaist pagoda of Miaoying Monastery, built in 1279,
and the one in Beihai Park, built in 1651, still rise above
much of the rest of Beijing’s architecture. Lamaist temple
compounds dominated the regions of China adjacent to
Tibet, in particular areas of Sichuan, Ningxia Hui, and
Qinghai, as well as Inner Mongolia. Patronized by the Man-
chu rulers of the last Chinese dynasty, Qing (1644–1911),
some of the most creative architecture of China’s last three
imperial centuries stands at Lamaist temple compounds.
Traditional Buddhist monasteries never disappeared
from China. Chan monasteries continued to be built and re-
stored into the last Qing century, especially at sacred loca-
tions, such as the Four Great Peaks; Wutai in Shanxi prov-
ince, dedicated to Mañju ́sr ̄ı; Putuo, the island off the coast
of Ningbo, dedicated to Avalokite ́svara; Emei in Sichuan,
dedicated to Samantabhadra; and Jiuhua in Anhui, dedicated
to Ks:itigarbha. The later temple compounds of traditional
sects retained axial arrangements and often were larger than
their pre-fourteenth-century predecessors. These temple
compounds included two new hall types, the diamond hall
and the hall of divine kings, both of which also were incorpo-
rated into Lamaist construction in China. Also new in four-
teenth-century temple compounds were brick “beamless”
halls that were a sharp contrast to the ubiquitous wooden
buildings of Chinese construction.
TEMPLE COMPOUNDS IN KOREA. Buddhism entered Korea
from China officially in 372. Although not every Chinese
Buddhist sect became popular in Korea, most were known
there. Thus Korean Buddhist temple compounds contained
the standard structures of Chinese monasteries. A standard
plan in a Korean Buddhist temple compound, a plan that is
equally common in China, includes an entry gate with a pair
of divine kings on each side, followed by a law hall and main
hall, and often additional halls behind or on the sides of this
core group. As in China, almost all Korean temple com-
pounds have Buddha halls and pagodas. Rock-carved cave-
temples also are found in Korea, but are much rarer than in
China.
Korea’s best-known Buddhist temple compounds are
Pulguksa and So ̆kkuram, both outside Kyo ̆ngju, capital of
the united Silla kingdom (668–935). Pulguksa consists of a
front gate with two halls directly behind it, and smaller halls
dedicated to buddhas or bodhisattvas in their own precincts.
The entry and most of the enclosing corridors of the monas-
tery are elevated on stone foundations. Pulguksa’s twin pago-
das, similarly, are made of stone, the predominant Korean
material of early pagodas. So ̆kkuram is Korea’s most famous
rock-carved Buddhist cave-chapel. The site with the greatest
concentration of Buddhist rock-carved niches and worship
spaces in Korea is Namsan (southern mountain), also in the
vicinity of Kyo ̆ngju. In addition to thousands of images,
Namsan has a pair of stone pagodas. The largest temple com-
pound in Korea is T’ongdo, located between Kyo ̆ngju and
Pusan. One of the most noteworthy is Haein Monastery,
which has been destroyed and rebuilt seven times; Haein
Monastery houses an extensive set of woodblocks for the
printing of Buddhist scriptures and the Tripit:aka Koreana.
TEMPLE COMPOUNDS IN JAPAN. Although rock-carved cave-
temples were never constructed in Japan, more pre-ninth-
century wooden architecture from Buddhist temple com-
pounds survives there than in any other East Asian country.
Among remains from the Asuka and Nara periods (552–784
CE) are main Buddha image halls known in Japanese as kondo ̄
(literally, “golden hall”), octagonal halls that commemorate
men important in a temple compound’s history; multistory
pagodas, including two miniature pagodas; lecture halls for
teaching the scriptures; and gates, enclosing corridors, a su ̄ tra
repository, a monks’ dormitory, and a refectory. Through
these structures, as well as excavated remains and literary de-
scriptions, temple compounds of the first Buddhist centuries
in Japan, as well as China and Korea, have been reconstruct-
ed. It is known, for example, that three arrangements domi-
nated temple compounds in Japan in the first Buddhist cen-
turies. At Shitenno ̄ji in Osaka, the pagoda and hall are on
an axial line, the arrangement implemented in China at
Yongning Monastery, as well as in the temple compounds
at Miruksa (early seventh century) of the Silla kingdom and
Gumgangsa (sixth century) of the Paekche kingdom of
Korea. At Japan’s Ho ̄ryu ̄ ji, whose four oldest buildings date
to around 700, and at Kawaharadera, the pagoda and main
Buddha hall were placed side by side. At sixth-century As-
ukadera, south of Nara in Asuka, three main Buddha halls
enclosed a dominant central pagoda on all but the south side.
Yet another Nara-period plan included twin pagodas on ei-
ther side in front of the main hall. Each of these plans is sug-
gested by excavated remains in Korean kingdoms of the sixth
and seventh centuries; they are also seen in murals dating
from the seventh and eighth centuries on the walls of cave-
temple compounds in China after Dunhuang. Expansive
temple compounds of eighth-century Japan, including
Ho ̄ryu ̄ ji and To ̄daiji, inform us of yet more kinds of struc-
tures that survive in rebuilt versions—bell and drum towers
used to keep time and call monks to prayer, halls for ceremo-
nies of certain moons of the lunar year, ordination halls, and
treasure repositories. Temple compounds could also include
shrines to monks or monk-founders, halls to individual bud-
dhas or bodhisattvas, gardens, bathhouses, and anything else
that offered full-service life and education to the monastic
and sometimes lay community.
Coincident with the move of the main capital to Heian
(Kyoto) at the end of the eighth century, esoteric Buddhist
sects, particularly Tendai and Shigon, both transmitted by
monks who had traveled to China to study their teachings,
rose in Japan. In contrast to the temple compounds of the
seventh and eighth centuries that dominated Japan’s capital
cities, early Heian-period monasteries had smaller buildings
located in remote, often mountainous settings. Thereby, the
clergy were kept distant from court affairs. Muroji in Nara
prefecture, Daigoji and Jingoji on the outskirts of Kyoto, and9048 TEMPLE: BUDDHIST TEMPLE COMPOUNDS IN EAST ASIA