sometimes near their burial sites and other times on sacred
Buddhist peaks. Second-grade temple compounds often
were commissioned by prefectural governments. Third-grade
monasteries would be founded by princes and princesses,
high-ranking nobility, or wealthy merchants. The same
groups patronized temple compounds in Korea and Japan.
The least distinguished temple compounds were built by
local funds of private individuals.
The greatest temple compounds of the Sui dynasty
(581–618) dominated their capital city Daxing (Chang’an
under the Tang dynasty, today Xian). Daxing Mountain
Monastery spanned an area 525 by 562 meters. Dachang-
ding Monastery was three times as large, with eastern and
western divisions and a pagoda that soared more than 97 me-
ters. It was still common at this time and in the subsequent
Tang dynasty for imperial residential architecture to be
transformed into Buddhist temple compounds. The resi-
dence of the prince of Wei, son of the second Tang emperor,
was transformed in 658 into a monastery with more than
four thousand bays of rooms and thirteen major Buddhist
halls arranged around ten courtyards.
By the Tang dynasty, it is possible to associate building
plans with Buddhist ceremonies. Halls used for ordination
of Zhenyan (Jpn., Shingon) monks were divided into front
and back spaces; the private back space was used for the initi-
ation rite in which the Womb and Diamond World
man:d:alas were removed from the wall and placed on a low
central table or on the floor. Other halls had a central altar
with images where the pagoda-pillar had stood in cave-
temples, and an enclosing ambulatory defined by pillars.
Both hall types and full-scale monasteries are depicted in
Buddhist murals and paintings on silk of the period.
From the Song, Liao, and Jin dynasties of the mid-tenth
through mid-thirteenth centuries, monasteries with numer-
ous types of buildings survive all over China. A pagoda or
multistory pavilion and main Buddha hall remained the
most important structures in most Chinese temple com-
pounds from this period. Sometimes the two were on a
building line that dominated the temple compound. Temple
compounds of the period with pagodas or pavilions at their
focus include Dule Monastery in Yi county, Hebei, whose
pavilion and front gate are dated 984; Fogong Monastery in
Ying county, Shanxi, whose 67-meter pagoda, the tallest
wooden pagoda in China today, dates to 1056; and Fengguo
Monastery in Yi county, Liaoning, whose main hall was built
in 1013. At Fengguo Monastery, a law (dharma) hall for ex-
pounding the Buddhist scriptures stood on the main build-
ing line with the 48.2-by-25.13-meter main hall and pavilion
behind the front gate. East and west of the central line were
pavilions to the Three Vehicles (triya ̄na) and Amita ̄bha Bud-
dha. A covered, pillar-supported arcade of 120 bays enclosed
Fengguo Monastery. Longxing Monastery in Zhengding,
Hebei, which was begun by imperial Song patronage shortly
after the establishment of the dynasty in 960 and whose
buildings were repaired or restored during the next century,
included an even longer line of main structures: a hall to the
Sixth Patriarch, a hall to S ́a ̄kyamuni Buddha, an ordination
platform, and a pavilion to Avalokite ́svara known as Dabei
or Foxiang Pavilion, which stood on the main axial line be-
hind the front gate. In addition, pairs of side halls, pavilions,
and towers framed each major courtyard in front of one of
the axially-positioned structures.
The pairing of pagodas and pavilions on either side in
front of a main hall became standard in tenth- to thirteenth-
century Chinese Buddhist temple compounds. Shanhua
Monastery in Datong, Shanxi, consisted of a front gate, a hall
of the three deities, and a main hall along its main building
line, along with two pairs of halls and a pair of pavilions
joined to the covered arcade that enclosed it. One of the pa-
vilions at both Shanhua and Longxing monasteries contained
the temple compound’s su ̄ tra collection. A standard feature
in Chinese monasteries of this middle period, the su ̄ tra hall
was often a pavilion or other multistory structure.
By the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279), the major-
ity of temple compounds were dedicated to the Chan sect.
The major monasteries of this meditational form of Bud-
dhism were dominated by seven halls arranged along a north-
south line: a front gate, a Buddha hall, a Vairocana hall, a
law hall, front abbot’s quarters, abbot’s quarters, and a room
for seated meditation. Buildings for mundane affairs, such
as storage halls and dormitories, filled the space on either side
of the main building line. Monks’ quarters sometimes con-
tained a single huge bed on which monks meditated and
slept. Other monasteries of the period had a hall dedicated
to the five hundred arhats (luohan). In addition to accounts
by Chinese pilgrims and records kept at the monasteries,
knowledge of Southern Song monasteries such as Tiantongsi
is preserved in accounts of Japanese Buddhist pilgrims to
south China. An important account is the illustrated record
of Gikai, who visited the five headquarters of Chan Bud-
dhism in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, including Ayu-
wang (King A ́soka) Monastery in Mingzhou, in 1259.
By the thirteenth century, great variety was found in
monastery architecture in China. When a monastery con-
tained three main buildings, for instance, the most important
Buddha hall could be right behind the main gate or last in
line. The lack of consistency can in part be explained by the
presence in China of numerous Buddhist sects and by an in-
creasing syncretism in Buddhist and Daoist worship that
gave rise to new sects. Often a twelfth- or thirteenth-century
Buddhist temple compound was architecturally indistin-
guishable from a Daoist temple compound on the exterior;
upon entering, however, statues and paintings confirmed the
temple’s affiliation. In addition, Daoist precincts could be
constructed at Buddhist monasteries and Buddhist precincts
at Daoist temple compounds. Guangsheng Monastery in
Hongdong, Shanxi, contains a Buddhist and a Daoist hall
constructed in the first quarter of the fourteenth century.
By the fourteenth century, Lamaist Buddhism had per-
vaded the Chinese landscape. The most representative struc-TEMPLE: BUDDHIST TEMPLE COMPOUNDS IN EAST ASIA 9047