. the tji lecture hall statue mandala 949
Because the plan for the Lecture Hall had been approved by the court
by the time Kūkai was appointed head of construction at Tōji, in 824,
he may have decided to install a statue program similar to one he had
seen in Chang’an, or he may have formulated a karma mandala based
on a practice, text, or conceptual design to suit the existing plan for
a “traditional” (eighth-century style) nine–by-four bay hall. Yet, with
few exceptions, scholars have not looked to the practice of image mak-
ing or the performance of mandala rites, to the mikkyō mandala and
its embedded conceptual frameworks, or to possible Chang’an proto-
types to understand the meanings of the Tōji Lecture Hall altar.
I propose a holistic visual interpretation of the altar and its visual
referentiality to ritual, in a setting in which visual culture is an active
participant but where the performance of ritual does not necessarily
occur. In this sense, the altar program is highly performative. To move
beyond a simple analysis of the Lecture Hall assembly as an icon hall
based on new mikkyō Sūtras or ritual texts, we must be willing to con-
sider both representation and iconography as a performance of ritual,
even as they may be substantiated by textual sources. As a karma man-
dala, and in other ways to be discussed in this essay, the Lecture Hall
icons participate in ritual in a manner consistent with choreography.
Simultaneously, the icons convey the visual significance of the mikkyō
teachings through material form and effect. In what we might refer to
as visual efficacy, the Tōji Lecture Hall program functions on a level
of meaning that references Buddhist goals of state protection and the
making of mandala in material, textual, and ritual dimensions.
The Early History of Mikkyō Ritual Halls and the Tōji Lecture Hall
Construction proceeded slowly at Tōji, despite the fact that it was one
of only two state monasteries in the new Heian capital.^5 The original
temple plan (on a south-north axis) consisted of a South and Middle
Gate, a Kondō , a nine–by-four bay Lecture Hall, northern dor-
mitories for monks, and a North Gate. Only the main hall, or Kondō,
(^5) According to the authors of NCKSS-jys (1: 41a and no. 10), who cite Tōbōki 1,
ZZGR 12 (no page given), prior to Kōnin 1 (810) the halls of private temples were
ordered to be dismantled and moved to Tōji and Saiji. On Saiji, see, NCKSS-jys 1:41–
- During the early years of construction in the new Heian capital, the privately
sponsored temples Kiyomizudera and Takaosanji were also being built or expanded.
On the use of the Tōji Kondō, see Tōbōki 1, Buppō-jō, ZZGR 12:8b–9b, cited in Ueno
Katsuhisa 1994.