What sashihijiki are
A sashihijiki is a bracket arm mortised into the side of a post. In an ordinary bracket complex, a large bearing block sits on top of the post and the arms rest on it. Here the arm is driven into a socket cut partway up the shaft, so it seems to sprout straight out of the post.
The JAANUS dictionary associates the device chiefly with the Daibutsuyo style and gives the Great South Gate of Todaiji in Nara, completed in 1199, as the classic example: arms are inserted tier above tier, each reaching further out to carry the deep eaves. Zen-style buildings use them beneath large tie beams and under verandas, but they are rare in Wayo work.
Modern builders used them as an expressive structural detail. In the great monks' hall of Sojiji in Yokohama, completed in 1937, the two free-standing central columns carry distinctive inserted bracket arms.
What to look for
Check the top of the post. If a bearing block sits there with arms on it, the bracketing is conventional; if arms emerge directly from the side of the shaft, they are sashihijiki. Several tiers of them point to Daibutsuyo practice.
On gates they appear as short arms carrying an eave beam or the beams of the gate. The main gate of Hokoji in Hamamatsu, from the mid-Meiji period, has two tiers of inserted arms under the eave beam, and the front gate of the Sanada residence in Mihara, Hiroshima Prefecture, built in 1928, carries the beams of its yakuimon on them.
Use the term only where the record does. A boat-shaped block on top of a post is a funahijiki, and a horizontal arm projecting to carry a beam is an udeki; both are different members.
References
- JAANUS (Japanese Architecture and Art Net Users System): sashihijiki
- https://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/jaanus/record/sashihijiki
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: Hokoji Main Gate
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00012930
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: Sojiji Great Monks' Hall
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00004722
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, Database of National Cultural Properties: Sanada Family Residence Front Gate
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00013649
Last verified: 2026.10.04