Sanjūsangen-dō Audio Guide

Sanjūsangen-dō: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Sanjūsangen-dō

   Welcome to Sanjūsangen-dō, known in Japanese as 三十三間堂, a Tendai Buddhist temple in Kyoto's Higashiyama ward, on the quiet side of town between the Kamo River and the eastern hills. The Kyoto National Museum is a short walk away, and a short bus ride from Kyoto Station brings you here. The temple's formal name is Rengeo-in, which means Lotus King Temple. Its principal image is the Thousand-Armed Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion. Today the temple is an enclave of Myōhō-in, which owns and manages it. It also holds a place as number 17 on the Rakuyō thirty-three-place Kannon pilgrimage. What strikes people first is the scale. The main hall stretches 125 meters, and inside it stand 1,001 standing Kannon statues. Over the next few minutes I'll tell you who built it, why it is called the hall of 33 bays, and how a medieval building this long survived in a city that burned so often.

2. 02

   An Emperor, a Warlord and a Palace Complex at Sanjūsangen-dō

   Picture Kyoto in the twelfth century. For a little over a hundred years from around 1086, a succession of emperors broke with tradition and tried to run Japan's politics and economy directly. Their trick was abdication. Once retired, they could gather enormous wealth and pursue wide-ranging political schemes. They also moved physically outside the capital's formal boundaries, building sprawling complexes that combined temples and palaces. Retired Emperor Goshirakawa, who lived from 1127 to 1192, built one of them right here. It was called Hōjūjidono, and it covered over 14 hectares, about 10 soccer fields, along Shichijō Avenue between the Kamo River and the eastern hills. When he wanted a temple within it, the warrior leader Taira no Kiyomori, who lived from 1118 to 1181, offered to help pay. The hall was completed in the Chōkan era, in 1164. The dedication fell on the seventeenth day of the twelfth month, which on our modern calendar is late January 1165. The name itself carries a message. Rengeo, Lotus King, is another name for the Thousand-Armed Kannon. Historians also read it as echoing the Lotus Sutra and the Indian ideal of a universal monarch, and see it as a signal that Goshirakawa saw himself as a transcendent Dharma Sovereign. The pattern had a precedent: Goshirakawa's father, Retired Emperor Toba, had a thousand-statue hall built in the eastern part of Kyoto with a donation from Kiyomori's father, Tadamori. Two retired emperors, two temples, both funded by the head of the Taira clan, a reminder of how the Taira rose.

3. 03

   Counting the Bays of Sanjūsangen-dō

   Here is a puzzle to try when you stand outside. The name means hall of 33 spaces between pillars. But if you look carefully along the side, you will count 35. The answer is simple: the official count of 33 measures the inner sanctuary only, leaving out the surrounding corridor and eaves. The 33 is no accident. In Mahayana Buddhist belief, Kannon, who sees everything and shows compassion to all, can take 33 different forms to lead people toward salvation. The hall is that idea turned into architecture. Inside the inner sanctuary sits the principal Thousand-Armed Kannon, and the 1,000 standing Thousand-Armed Kannon statues stand beside it. Thirty Indian deities also keep watch there. The hall holds the wind and thunder gods, Fujin and Raijin, and a group of 28 attendants. All of these are part of the national treasure designation. A historian of Japanese architecture has described how the hall's sheer length is only part of the story. It is built in the Wayō style, the native Japanese approach to building, and it is a National Treasure. When it was new, its exterior was painted vermilion and its interior blazed with rich color. Stand at its base and imagine that shade of red against the Higashiyama hills.

4. 04

   Fire, Rebuilding and a Legend at Sanjūsangen-dō

   Originally this was a full temple, with a five-story pagoda among its buildings. Then came the great Kenchō fire of 1249, and the complex burned. In 1266 Retired Emperor Gosaga had only the long hall rebuilt, and that is the building you see today. Kyoto has suffered many fires over its long history as a center of political and cultural life, so a vast building from the Kamakura period still standing here is, in the words of one architectural historian, nothing short of miraculous. Then there is the legend, and it is a strange one. Tradition says Goshirakawa suffered from headaches for years. When he prayed about them on a pilgrimage to Kumano, the deity there told him to pray to the Yakushi Buddha at Inabadō in Kyoto. At Inabadō a monk appeared in his dream and told him that in a former life he had been a monk named Rengebō of Kumano, and that his good works in that life had brought him rebirth as an emperor. But the monk's skull, the dream said, lay at the bottom of the Iwata River, with a willow growing through its eye socket. Legend ties the hall's founding to this tale. Remember it as a story passed down rather than a documented fact.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off from Sanjūsangen-dō

   As you leave, look around at the land itself. The Kyoto National Museum nearby is a relic of the old era, and a north-south line runs from this hall to the museum's main entrance. Historians trace it back to the days when this whole district was Goshirakawa's palace complex. The views toward the Kamo River and the Higashiyama hills have not changed, so walking around the outside is a way of reading the layers of history in the landscape. On your way, try one more count of the pillars along the side, and ask yourself how the same hall can be 33 bays and 35 at once. Look, too, for the way a retired emperor's politics, a warrior's money and a bodhisattva's 33 forms all met in one very long building. There is plenty more to find here, so keep your eyes open as you go.