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Tō-ji Temple - 東寺 (built 796 onward)

Tō-ji Temple presently stands to the southwest of Kyoto station. Its name literally means "East Temple", in contrast to the Saiji (West Temple) that once existed on the opposite side of the Rashomon, the gate to the Heian-era capital. Although the present buildings were largely reconstructed in the Edo period, the site has been in continuous use since the founding of Kyoto in 784. At that time, Emperor Kammu moved the capital from Nara to Kyoto to avoid the endless political intrigues of the capital's various Buddhist factions. The Emperor forbid Nara's monks from moving with him, but he did establish both Tō-ji and Saiji to protect the entrance of the capital in the hopes of preventing evil influences from gaining a foothold there. At that time, what would one day become Tō-ji temple was known as Kyō-ō-gokoku-ji - 教王護国寺 (The Temple for the Defense of the Nation by the Means of the King of Doctrines).

The establishment of Buddhist temples for the protection of the realm was a fairly common feature at this time, both in Japan and in neighboring Korea. For example, at Gyeongju, the capital of the Silla kingdom, the Hwangyongsa (Imperial Dragon Temple) was constructed to protect the kingdom from its enemies. However, the temple was such a difficult undertaking that it took seventeen years to complete.

In the case of Tō-ji, construction of the temple was even slower, and it was still incomplete thirty years after groundbreaking. Emperor Kammu had come and gone, but his successor, Emperor Saga, put a Buddhist priest by the name of Kūkai (空海) in charge of the construction effort in 823. The effort was a mixed success, for the pagoda was still incomplete by the time Kū died in 835, but he had left a remarkable legacy. Kūkai had become highly influential as the founder of the Shingon school of Buddhism, which he had systematized prior to his appointment at Tō-ji. After his appointment, he was authorized by the Emperor to make Tō-ji temple the exclusive domain of Shingon, and to train 50 monks in the new sect. During Kūkai's lifetime, he managed to add several buildings to Tō-ji, including a lecture hall in 825, but much of his time appears to have been devoted to spiritual matters. By the end of his life, he had cemented Shingon as an orthodox sect of the Imperial family and nobility, and it has survived on to the present day.

None of the buildings of Kūkai's era have survived. The five-story pagoda, symbol of both Tō-ji and Kyoto as a whole, was rebuilt in 1644 by the third Shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu. The oldest extant building on the site is the Kodo (Lecture Hall) dating from 1491. The Kondo (Main Hall), was last rebuilt in 1603.

Plan view

Image drawn by Timothy M Ciccone, copyright 2009.