Paper short abstract:

Focusing on the temple hall Sanjūsangendō, this paper discusses the historical development of the "mass-image hall" as an architectural typology and the key role it played in the visual expression of the religious and political authority of the retired emperors during the twelfth century.

Paper long abstract:

The twelfth century witnessed an extraordinary flourishing of large-scale temple and sculptural production on the outskirts of the Heian capital, most clearly represented by the lost temples-palace complexes of the Shirakawa District to the capital's northeast and the Toba Detached Palace directly south of the capital. As scholars have noted, these building activities were driven largely by the political and economic ambitions of abdicated emperors. Among the architectural trends that emerged at this time was the erection of monumental halls built to enshrine ensembles of 100 to 1,000 sculptures of a single Buddhist deity. This mass production of Buddhist images and their enshrinement within a single monumental temple hall has also been critiqued for its ambiguous relation to Buddhist doctrine, representing at best an excessive display of the Buddhist practice of "good works" (sazen 作善) or "the principle of merit through large numbers" (sūryō kudoku shugi 数量功徳主義). This paper aims to reevaluate this form of large-scale architectural and sculptural practice through a study of the temple hall Sanjūsangendō ("Hall of Thirty-Three Bays"), addressing the unique religious and lineal concerns that underlay its production.

Enshrining a kaleidoscopic ensemble of 1,000 life-sized gilt-wood sculptures of Senju Kannon (One Thousand-Armed Avalokiteśvara), the monumental thirty-three bay long structure was dedicated in 1164 as the central ritual hall of retired emperor Go Shirakawa's (1127-1192; r. 1155-1158) newly established temple-palace complex east of the Kamo River, the original layout of which can be partially reconstructed through documentary records and recent archaeological findings. By situating Sanjūsangendō within the historical development of a broader architectural typology I refer to as the "mass-image hall," this paper shows how the retired emperors built on and adapted established architectural models and iconographic programs to formulate new visual expressions of Buddhist kingship, postmortem salvation and clan identity. A focus on the position of Sanjūsangendō within the larger program of Go Shirakawa's temple-palace complex in particular shows how he adapted models established by his father Toba (1103-1156; r. 1107-1123) to construct a unique cultic space layered with complex religious, political and lineal symbolism.