Buddhism in Japan: A Short History
Japonista Dictionary › Foundations
Buddhism reached Japan in the sixth century as the faith of a foreign court and became, over fourteen hundred years, part of the fabric of Japanese life: its art and architecture, its rites of death and remembrance, its gardens, tea and poetry. This short history follows the main turns of that story and the objects each age left behind.
Arrival, sixth and seventh centuries
In the mid-sixth century, a Korean king of Baekje sent a gilt-bronze image and sutras to the Japanese court. After a struggle between the pro-Buddhist Soga clan and their rivals, the new faith was adopted. Prince Shōtoku championed it, and temples such as Hōryūji and Shitennōji rose. Sculpture of this age, with its archaic smile and stylised drapery, follows Korean and Chinese models.
Nara, eighth century
The state embraced Buddhism as a protector of the nation. Emperor Shōmu ordered temples in every province and built Tōdaiji with its Great Buddha, Birushana. The Nara schools flourished, and sculpture in bronze, clay and dry lacquer reached a classical height.
Heian, ninth to twelfth centuries
Saichō and Kūkai brought Tendai and esoteric Buddhism from China, filling halls with mandalas and wisdom kings. As belief spread that the world had entered a degenerate age, devotion to Amida and his Pure Land grew, and the sculptor Jōchō created the gentle style of the court.
Kamakura, 1185 to 1333
New movements brought Buddhism to everyone: the Pure Land teaching of Hōnen and Shinran, the Zen of Eisai and Dōgen, and the Lotus Sutra devotion of Nichiren. The Kei school of Unkei and Kaikei made sculpture of startling realism.
Muromachi and Momoyama, 1336 to 1603
Zen monasteries became centres of learning, ink painting, gardens and tea. Civil war destroyed and rebuilt temples; Oda Nobunaga burned Mount Hiei.
Edo, 1603 to 1868
Every household was registered with a Buddhist temple, and the family altar, the butsudan, spread to homes across the country. Workshops produced images, altars and implements in great numbers, and pilgrimage and the lucky gods flourished. Most Buddhist objects on the market today date from this age.
Meiji to the present
In 1868 the government separated kami from buddhas, and a wave of anti-Buddhist destruction followed; many works left their temples. See Shinbutsu Shūgō. Buddhism recovered, and today some seventy-seven thousand temples remain, central above all to funerals and memorials, while Zen and Buddhist art draw admirers worldwide.
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