Gardens within temples of Pure Land Buddhism

The urban temple complexes of the Asuka and Nara eras were built around large, open inner courtyards, which functioned as a setting for religious ceremonies and thus paralleled those in the imperial palace used for state ceremonials. Indeed, in the highly formal and symmetrical alignment of its lecture halls, pagodas and corridors, the sacred architecture of these early Bud dhist temples largely followed the secular model of imperial Chinese palaces.
The inner courtyards of these early temples were largely devoid of gardens, a situation which began to change as from the middle of the eleventh century, when the Fujiwara princes started funding the building of Pure Land temples inside and outside Heian-kyo. These new temples all included ornamental pond-and-island gardens of the first Japanese prototype category, and sought to emulate the Shinden-style palace archi tecture of the early Heian period.

In order to understand the temple architecture of the Heian and Fujiwara eras, it is important to consider the underlying mood of the times. There reigned, at least amongst the privileged classes, the feeling of mujokan, a sense of the impermanence of the world and of the dreamlike quality of one's own existence. Japanologist Ivan Morris cites a number of images from the litera ture of the Heian period which reflect such preoccupa tions. In a poem by lady-in-waiting Akashi addressed to Prince Genji, life is described as akenu yo no yume,
a "night of endless dreams"; in another example, the last volume of Murasaki's famous "Tale of Genji" is entitled Yume no ukehashi, "the floating bridge of dreams" over which man passes from one life to the next.

This sense of impermanence was largely inspired by the widespread belief that the world had entered the last phase of its history. According to Pure Land Bud dhist thinking, humankind had passed through shobo, the period of true law covering the first 500 years after Buddha's death, and zobo, the period of false law which had lasted the 500 years after that, to reach mappo, the period of ending law. It was believed that salvation could only be attained in this final stage through contemplation of the Buddha or by simply uttering the name of Amida Buddha.

This sense of fin-de-siecle gloom, of the futility of all human endeavour, was the inevitable fate of a wealthy society seeking to cure the problem of endless free time with cultural pursuits such as poetry competitions, calligraphy, banquets, semi-religious rituals and state ceremonies, as well as the more physical sports of horse racing, cockfighting and archery. Mujokan, the sense of impermanence, and eiga, the sense of worldly pomp, are simply two sides of the same coin. But true religion, the understanding of the self, is the greatest luxury of all. Only when man's material and aesthetic needs are met does he become aware of his spiritual deficiences.

Rather than leading to hopeless immobility, however, the worldy boredom and religious despair of the Heian period resulted, paradoxically, in a blossoming of the arts. It produced some of the finest poetry and novels m Japanese literary history, and some of the most beautiful sculpture and gardens.

The temple gardens of the Fujiwara era were seen as representations of that Pure Land believed to be located somewhere in the West. Just as two-dimen sional, painted mandalas of Amida's paradise had ear lier taken imperial Chinese architecture as their inspira tion, so the architects of the later Heian period similarly looked back to concrete models when composing their three-dimensional mandalas of buildings and gardens. But these models were now the Shinden-style palace complexes of the early Heian period, with their rectan gular "armchair" design and pond gardens enclosed within a south garden. Thus the Buddhist temple com plex may be seen as a logical continuation of that first Japanese garden prototype. But whereas it was for merly a mere backdrop for courtly entertainments, it now assumed a new, religious significance.

Nothing survives of the early temples of Pure Land Buddhism in present-day Kyoto. A hypothetical recon struction of Hojo-ji temple suggests that Buddhist com plexes shared the same north-south orientation and symmetrical ground plan as the palaces of the aristoc racy. Hojo-ji was begun in 1019 by Fujiwara no Michi-naga, who is also said to have died within its walls reciting Amida's name. The large temple covered an area of nearly 300 square yards. New to Buddhist tem ple architecture was the size and position of its Amida Hall, west of the mam court, with its eleven bays and
nine Amida statues each some fifteen feet tall. New, too, was its pond garden with a central island, housing a stage for religious ceremonies and concerts.

The splendour of the Heian vision of paradise on earth can still be glimpsed outside the former capital in Byodo-in, the "Temple of Equality and Impartiality" built in 1052 by Fujiwara no Yorimichi on the banks of the Uji river. This temple centred entirely around the Hoo-do, the famous Phoenix Hall. Inside the Phoenix Hall was a large statue of Buddha; since cosmological considerations required it to face east, the entire com plex was in turn oriented east-west. We know from historical sources that the Buddha statue was wor shipped from a platform in the pond, the worshipper thereby facing due west, the direction in which the Pure Land of Amida was believed to lie. Musicians would play from decorated barges floating on the wa ters. The pond itself has changed shape a number of times in its history, but continues to fulfil its original function: to mirror in its waters the elegant symmetry of the temple architecture.

Towards the end of the eleventh century, a northern branch of the Fujiwara clan built a dazzling succession of temples and Pure-Land paradise gardens. The major ity lay in Hiraizumi in northern Honshu; all employed the familiar armchair ground plan, in which a garden is cradled by surrounding buildings, and were thus illus trations of the first Japanese garden prototype. Little has survived of these gardens, however. Only Motsu-ji Temple, built by Prince Fujiwara Motohira (died 1157), still preserves something of the original shape of its pond and islands. The bold rock settings on its shores are amongst those best preserved from Heian times

Garden and temple were treated as an integral unit throughout the entire era of Fujiwara temple-building. Over time, however, certain changes nevertheless took place Whereas the gardens of Hojo-ji temple, which marked the beginning of the great phase of Fujrwara building, are entirely subordinate to the right angle of the temple architecture, the architecture of Motsu-ji Temple, which closed this magnificent era. is entirely subordinate to the design of the garden. The nght an gle has abandoned its framing function to the garden's powerful embrace.