Daibutsuyō

What daibutsuyō is

Daibutsuyō is the manner introduced from China for the rebuilding of Todaiji. It is one of the three medieval manners alongside Wayō and Zenshūyō, and an older Japanese name for it invokes India.

Its marks are in the detail. The gate at Yoryuji in Hyogo Prefecture, from the mid-Edo period, is described as a three-bay gate with one opening facing south at the lower entrance of the precinct, Irimoya-zukuri with Hongawarabuki, its frame tied by through-beams, its upper Kumimono projecting two steps, with double rows of closely spaced Taruki. The entry finds the influence of this manner in its saucer-moulded bracket blocks, its inserted arms and the mouldings on the ends of its through-arms.

An inserted arm passes through a mortice in the side of the column rather than resting on top of it, so the column itself carries the load. The saucer moulding is a shallow dished form set beneath the main bracket block.

The gate at Gokurakuji in the same prefecture, built in 1728, is described as adopting details of this manner in the same features, with a Taiheizuka shaped like a jar standing on the Kōryō along the ridge, in what the entry calls a gate of unusual form.

Present as influence rather than as a whole

Both entries speak of influence and of adopted details rather than of buildings in the manner. The elements appear within compositions that belong elsewhere.

The manner was introduced for one specific undertaking and did not spread as a style in its own right. From the medieval period onward it survives as detail absorbed into buildings of the other two manners, which is why records almost always name it in that way.

On site, look at the sides of the columns. An arm projecting from partway up a column rather than from its head is the inserted type and belongs to this lineage, and a shallow dished form beneath a bracket block is the other mark.