Shingon school

What the Shingon school is

The Shingon school is the esoteric Buddhist tradition founded by Kukai in the ninth century after his study in China. Mount Koya is its principal seat.

Records of the National Cultural Properties Database name it at the head of a description to characterise a temple. Ishiyamadera in Shiga Prefecture, an Important Cultural Property, is described as a Shingon temple in the city of Otsu whose precinct centres on a main hall built in the Heian period.

The school divides into many branches. Zentsuji in Kagawa Prefecture is described as the head temple of its own branch, at the eastern foot of Mount Koshiki west of the town, said to be the birthplace of Kukai and the seventy-fifth station of the Shikoku pilgrimage. The abbot's quarters at Hasedera in Nara Prefecture belong to the head temple of another branch, and the eighth station of the western pilgrimage.

Pilgrimage routes recur in these descriptions. The Shikoku circuit of eighty-eight temples and the western circuit of thirty-three are closely bound to the school.

How building records use it

The school does not by itself determine architectural manner. The main hall of Kiyomizudera in Nagasaki, built in 1668, is described as belonging to a Shingon temple founded in 1623 and paid for by a Chinese merchant, yet its ceiling over the outer area and the carved bases above its Kōryō follow the manner of Obaku-sect halls.

Plans do show tendencies. The main hall of Tofukuji in Tokushima Prefecture, built in 1833, is described as 26.2 by 13.1 metres, Yosemune-zukuri with formal tiles, ringed by a Geya, with a porch under a curved gable at the front, a broad veranda along the east and eight rooms behind it, the second room from the south in the rear range serving as the Naijin. The entry calls it a Shingon hall of standing.

When writing, use the school to describe the character of a temple rather than to assert an architectural manner. Style is classified on a separate axis, between Wayō, Daibutsuyō and Zenshūyō.