Sanjūsangen-dō Temple

Overview

Sanjūsangen-dō (三十三間堂) is a Buddhist temple in the Higashiyama-ku ward of Kyoto, Japan. It belongs to the Tendai sect and forms part of the Myōhō-in temple complex. Its official name is Rengeō-in (蓮華王院), the "Hall of the Lotus King," though almost everyone knows it by the nickname that describes its most striking physical feature: a main hall so long that it is measured in bays rather than metres.

The temple was founded in 1165 by Taira no Kiyomori for the cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa, during the Heian period (794–1185), in the first year of the Eiman era (永万). It is counted among the 33 Sacred Sites of Luoyang Kannon, a pilgrimage circuit that takes its name from the old Chinese capital and its number from the thirty-three forms the bodhisattva Kannon is said to assume.

Sanjūsangen-dō is best known for two things: the enormous timber hall that gives the temple its name, and the extraordinary assembly of sculptures inside it. The hall dates from 1266, in the Kamakura period, and is designated a National Treasure of Japan. The sculptures it houses — 1,001 standing Thousand-armed Kannon, 28 standing attendants, a statue of Fūjin and a statue of Raijin, and the large seated Thousand-armed Kannon that serves as the temple's principal image — are likewise designated National Treasures, most of them in the category of sculpture and most dating from the Heian to Kamakura periods.

History

The temple was founded in 1165 by Taira no Kiyomori, the warrior-aristocrat whose family would dominate Japanese politics within a decade, for the cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa. The foundation belongs to the closing decades of the Heian period, when retired emperors governed from behind the scenes and great aristocratic patrons competed to endow Kyoto with temples.

That first building did not survive. A conflagration destroyed it, and the hall standing today is the product of an architectural reconstruction completed in 1266, in the early Kamakura period. The rebuilding preserved the scale and the name of the original, which is why a thirteenth-century structure carries a twelfth-century foundation date.

The temple's long, narrow interior also gave rise to a very different kind of history. The space beneath the eaves became the site of Tōshiya (通し矢), an archery contest in which bowmen shot arrows the full length of the hall. The event turned the temple's architecture into a measuring stick for martial skill, and the marks of that tradition survive in the building's fabric.

Ownership and administration passed to Myōhō-in, the temple complex of which Sanjūsangen-dō is now a part. That relationship defines the temple's present institutional identity.

What Stands There Today

The hondō (本堂), the main hall, is the centrepiece. Completed in 1266 and designated a National Treasure of Japan, it is a single long timber structure whose bays march down the length of the building in a rhythm that is immediately legible from the outside. The name of the temple is, in effect, a description of this hall.

Inside, the principal image is a large seated Thousand-armed Kannon. Flanking it are 1,001 standing Thousand-armed Kannon, arranged in dense ranks, together with 28 standing attendants. Two further statues, of Fūjin and Raijin, stand at the front of the assembly. All of these are designated National Treasures in the category of sculpture, and most date from the Heian to Kamakura periods.

The temple sits at coordinates 34.9878850, 135.7717130, in the Higashiyama district of Kyoto, within the Myōhō-in complex.

The Name in Japanese

The temple's Japanese name is 三十三間堂, read in kana as さんじゅうさんげんどう and romanised as Sanjūsangen-dō. It is a descriptive name rather than a devotional one: it tells the visitor what the building looks like, not what it is for. Breaking it down kanji by kanji makes the logic clear.

三 — read here as san — means "three."

十 — read here as jū — means "ten." Together, 三十 (sanjū) means "thirty."

三 — read here as san — means "three." Added to the preceding two characters, 三十三 (sanjūsan) gives "thirty-three."

間 — read here as gen — is the counter word for a bay, the interval between two structural posts in a building. In this compound it takes the voiced reading gen rather than the more familiar ken. The number thirty-three is not arbitrary: it matches the thirty-three forms of Kannon, the bodhisattva to whom the temple is dedicated, and the thirty-three sites of the Luoyang Kannon pilgrimage.

堂 — read here as dō — means "hall," specifically a temple hall housing an image of worship.

So 三十三間堂 means, plainly, "the hall of thirty-three bays." The name is a measurement, a dedication and a piece of architecture all at once. The temple's formal name, Rengeō-in (蓮華王院), is a separate matter: 蓮華 (renge) is the lotus, 王 (ō) is "king," and 院 (in) is a temple or cloistered residence — the "Hall of the Lotus King."

Visiting and Context

Sanjūsangen-dō stands in Higashiyama-ku, the eastern district of Kyoto, within the Myōhō-in temple complex. It is one of the 33 Sacred Sites of Luoyang Kannon, so a visit can be framed as a single stop on a pilgrimage circuit or as a standalone encounter with one of the largest concentrations of Buddhist sculpture in Japan.

The building rewards attention to two things at once. The first is scale: the hall's thirty-three bays make it one of the longest wooden structures in the country, and the effect of walking its length is inseparable from the effect of the name. The second is density: 1,001 standing Kannon, 28 attendants, Fūjin and Raijin, and the seated principal image, most of them Heian to Kamakura work and all of them National Treasures in the category of sculpture.

For students of Japanese, the temple is a useful case study in how place names work. 三十三間堂 is not a poetic or religious title but a compound built from a number, a counter and a noun — the kind of name that tells you exactly what to expect before you arrive.