Asuka-dera

Asuka-dera (also Hōkō-ji) is a Buddhist temple in Asuka, Nara Prefecture, Japan. Founded by the powerful Soga clan in the late 6th century, it is regarded as the first fully fledged Buddhist temple complex in Japan and the first building in the country roofed with fired clay tiles (kawara).

Founding

The main source is the Nihon Shoki, an 8th-century chronicle. It says Soga no Umako vowed to build a temple if he defeated the rival Mononobe clan, and dates the decision to 587. Construction is dated to 588 or 592, depending on the passage, with completion in 596. Historians treat these dates as approximate because the chronicle was compiled more than a century later.

Baekje craftsmen and the first tiles

The chronicle records that in 588 the Korean kingdom of Baekje sent a team to Japan: two temple builders, one specialist probably responsible for metal fittings such as the pagoda spire, four roof-tile experts and a painter. The tile makers brought the moulding and kiln methods used on Baekje temples, so Asuka-dera's roofs mark the start of Japanese tile making.

Move to Nara

When the capital moved to Heijō-kyō (Nara) in the early 8th century, the temple was re-established there as Gangō-ji. Sources give the move as 716 or 718; which is correct is uncertain. Gangō-ji's Gokuraku-bo hall and Zenshitsu still carry what are described as the oldest surviving kawara in Japan, a direct physical link to the Asuka period tile work.

Significance for roofing

Before Asuka-dera, Japanese buildings were roofed with plant materials such as thatch and bark. Tiles remained largely a temple material for the next century, then spread to palaces and government buildings. The temple therefore stands at the head of a tradition that, over about a thousand years, made tiled roofs common on Japanese houses.