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Tiangong Louge in Eastern Pure Land Illustrations You & Zhu

Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism

2022 Volume 4 Issue 2: 1-23 Secondary Publication

Tiangong Louge in Eastern Pure Land Illustrations of the

Medicine Buddha – A Secondary Publication

Yiming You, Yongchun Zhu

School of Architecture, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, Fujian, China

Corresponding author: Yongchun Zhu, School of Architecture, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, Fujian,
China. Email: zyc4246@163.com

Citation: You Y, Zhu Y, 2022, Tiangong Louge in Eastern Pure Land Illustrations of the
Medicine Buddha – A Secondary Publication. Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism, 4(2):
192. http://dx.doi.org/10.36922/jcau.v4i2.192

ABSTRACT

After the arrival of Buddhism in China, the foreign concept of heavenly buildings merged with the
indigenous Tang-Song architecture into what became known as tiangong louge (heavenly palaces).
Through comparison with Song building standards (Yingzao Fashi), this paper analyzes the
architectural representations of tiangong louge in Eastern Pure Land illustrations of the Medicine
Buddha. What becomes immediately apparent is that Yingzao Fashi describes only a few specific
buildings (dianshen, chalou, jiaolou, xiewu, xinglang), whereas the Pure Land illustrations depict a
greater diversity and variety of forms (for example, sanmen). A possible reason for this is that the idea
of the Eastern Pure Land underwent significant changes before the Yingzao Fashi was compiled.
Another reason is that the belief in the Eastern Pure Land was always rooted in reality and the actual
conditions of the site. Additionally, Eastern Pure Land illustrations reveal four different types of
clustered design: open foreground, one courtyard; open foreground, two courtyards; closed foreground,
one courtyard; and closed foreground, two courtyards.

Keywords: Eastern Pure Land illustrations; tiangong louge; Yingzao Fashi

This article belongs to Secondary Publication Section, and is translated from an article published in Journal of
Architectural History 《建筑史学刊》. Citation of primary version: You Y, Zhu Y, 2020, Tiangong Louge in
Eastern Pure Land Illustrations of the Medicine Buddha. Journal of Architectural History, 2022(1): 11-21.
http://dx.doi.org/10.12329/20969368.2022.01002

Copyright: © 2022 Journal of Architectural History. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits all
non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction, in any medium provided the original work is properly cited.

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