About the Symposium

Designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993, the Horyu-ji temple complex includes some of the oldest and largest surviving wooden buildings in the world. The original Horyu-ji temple was built between 601 and 607, by Prince Regent Shotoku (573? - 622), one of Japan’s most prominent cultural heroes. After a fire in 670 that destroyed the site, the temple was subsequently rebuilt and enlarged. Horyu-ji became one of Japan’s leading centers of Buddhist scholarship as well as a focus of the cult of its founder. Over the centuries numerous buildings were added and the temple has become a repository of a large quantity of Buddhist artworks. Many of the temple’s buildings are now listed as National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties. Four of them, which date to the first rebuilding of the temple during the late seventh and early eighth centuries, are among the oldest wooden buildings of East Asia. Masterpieces of wooden architecture, they illustrate Japan’s adaptation of Chinese Buddhist architecture and temple layout, which subsequently gave rise to the development of a distinct indigenous style. The construction of the temple also marked the introduction of Buddhism to Japan, from China by way of the Korean peninsula, promoted by Prince Shotoku. This symposium brings together archaeologists, architecture historians, art historians, and religious historians to examine the Horyu-ji in broad cultural contexts. It examines not only the founding and reconstruction of the temple and the legacy of its founder, but also explores the larger, cross-cultural perspective of placing the Horyu-ji at the threshold of an international Buddhist art and architecture in East Asia.