SACRED ARCHITECTURE OF BUDDHISM AND SHINTO BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF ACTIVE CULTURAL INTERACTION BETWEEN CHINA AND JAPAN

Abstract

The paper examines the sacred buildings of Chinese Buddhism and Japanese Shinto with the aim of identifying their characteristic features and differences prior to the onset of the active influence of Chinese civilization on Japan. The analysis is conducted in the aspect of the fundamental differences in the worldview between the Buddhist religious doctrine and the animistic beliefs of Shinto. Two authentic objects from both religious streams were chosen as examples: the monastery complex of the Foguang Temple (Shanxi Province, China), built in 857 AD, and the complex of the Ise Shrine (Mie Prefecture, Japan), constructed at different estimates from the 3rd to the 6th century AD. The Foguang Temple complex is characterized by a clear planning structure, imagery in compositional details, and discreteness in relation to the surrounding environment, as, according to Buddhist teachings, the surrounding world is a place of the soul's suffering. In the planning structure of the Ise Shrine complex, features of regular planning are only partially present, the imagery of the elements of the complex is not unambiguous, and a general characteristic is the synthesis with the surrounding environment, which, according to the nature of animistic worldview, is inherently sacred. The identified features have been reduced to several basic design principles that largely characterize the specified religious streams and, as a result, form the main difference in their architecture.