Shin-Yakushiji Temple Main Hall

The one building left from the eighth century

The Shin-Yakushiji Temple Main Hall (新薬師寺本堂, Shin-Yakushiji Hondō) is a Nara-period Buddhist hall in Takabatake, Nara City, Nara Prefecture, first designated in 1897 and designated a National Treasure in 1952. It is a single-storey building seven bays wide and five bays deep under an Irimoya-zukuri hip-and-gable roof covered in Hongawarabuki tiles.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates the hall on stylistic grounds to the Nara period and links it to the founding of Shin-Yakushiji by Empress Kōmyō in 747. What it was built for is another matter. It was neither the temple's golden hall nor its lecture hall, and its original function is unknown; the temple itself suggests it was a hall for esoteric rites.

It became the main hall by default. The golden hall collapsed in the Heian period, and at some point this building, standing on higher ground at the eastern side of the site, took over. A secondary hall outlived everything around it and ended up at the centre of the temple.

Why a plain hall is a National Treasure

The Shin-Yakushiji Main Hall matters because it shows how an eighth-century Buddhist hall was put together, with very little added since. There are no Nageshi, the horizontal tie beams that later builders ran across the columns. The bracketing on top of each column is the simplest kind, a large bearing block with a single bracket arm. Freed of heavy structure, the roof reads as light, and the triangular gables at either end are small. The Agency singles out that light roof and those modest gables as the clearest marks of Nara-period design.

Inside there is no ceiling. Rainbow-curved tie beams, or Kōryō, carry pairs of inclined struts that meet under the ridge, and the whole frame is left open to view from below, a treatment known as Keshō-yaneura. The roof rests on 40 columns, every one of them round.

The other feature is the platform. At the centre of the floor sits a circular earthen dais, about 90 centimetres high and about 9 metres across according to the temple. Altar platforms in Japanese Buddhist halls are almost always rectangular; a round one is rare, and the Agency lists it as one of the hall's unusual features.

What to look for

Step through the South Gate and the hall is right in front of you: a long, low roof with a gentle sweep, and wide panels of white plaster between the columns. With almost no ornament, the building depends on two things only, the curve of the roof and the rhythm of the posts. Stand well back first, check how the eaves lift at each corner, and then walk up.

The floor inside is beaten earth, and the columns are thick. Look up before you look at the statues. The beams and struts overhead are the carpentry of the Nara period, left bare.

On the round dais sits the principal image, a wooden seated Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha of healing, carved between the late Nara and early Heian periods and itself a National Treasure. Ringed around him stand twelve clay figures of the divine generals who guard Yakushi, also Nara-period and also a National Treasure; one of the twelve is a Shōwa-era replacement. According to tradition, the generals came from Iwabuchi-dera, a temple that once stood at the foot of nearby Mount Takamado. Because the dais is round, the arrangement of guardians around the seated figure holds together from every angle as you walk the circuit.

Seeing the main hall

Of the five designated buildings at Shin-Yakushiji, the Main Hall is the one you go inside. After paying at the reception you can walk around the dais and see Yakushi and each of the twelve generals in turn. Photography is not allowed inside, so put the camera away before you enter.

The exterior can be viewed freely from the grounds. The white south wall catches the light through the middle of the day, and the curve of the roof is easiest to read from just inside the South Gate. From that spot you also see the Belfry to the right and the Jizo Hall to the left, two Kamakura-period buildings framing the Nara-period roof.