The Spread of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia from the 16th to the 17th Century: The Spatial Formation of the World Heritage Site Erdene Zuu Monastery

Abstract

Erdene Zuu is the oldest extant Buddhist temple in the country of Mongolia, founded following the reintroduction of Tibetan Buddhism to Inner Mongolia in the sixteenth century. The subject of this paper is the building activities of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, particularly of the complex centering on Gurban Zuu (Three Temples), which are the main buildings of Erdene Zuu. The author first confirms Gurban Zuu’s ground plan based on measurements, and then interprets the “black-ink inscription” discovered on the ridge purlin of the Central Buddha Hall. This complex is then compared with Inner Mongolian Buddhist temples of the same period. Finally, the author studies whether or not the spatial structure of the temple architecture of the Mongolian Empire of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was continued at Erdene Zuu, and analyzes the position that Erdene Zuu occupied in the Tibetan Buddhist sphere. This comparative study investigates the origins of Erdene Zuu’s architectural spatial composition within East Asia.

1. Introduction

Erdene Zuu, which is registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the oldest extant Buddhist temple in the country of Mongolia, founded following the reintroduction of Tibetan Buddhism to Inner Mongolia in 15781. Yekhe Zuu was the first temple of this reintroduction, founded by Altan Khan in 1579 in Hohhot. The statue of the twelve-year-old Śākyamuni has been enshrined inside Yekhe Zuu ever since its construction. In the biography of Altan Khan, Yekhe Zuu is described as juu sikamuni süm-e2. The word juu(zuu) here comes from Tibetan and refers to the Śākyamuni statue, and süm-e comes from the pronunciation of the Chinese character si 寺 (temple). Today in Inner Mongolia, zuu 召 means Buddha, Buddha hall or monastery and refers especially to Tibetan Buddhist temples, distinguishing them from Han Buddhist temples which are signified by the character si 寺. In my Chinese thesis of 2013 (Bao 2013, p. 173), I translated erdene as bao 宝 in Chinese. This bao 宝 is a Buddhist term used in the Chinese character cultural sphere (including Japan and the Korean Peninsula), referring to the Three Treasures of Buddhism, the Buddha 佛, the teachings (Dharma) 法 and the Buddhist community 僧. In the present context, bao 宝 cannot be understood as “precious,” which is its broader, popular meaning.

Buildings at Erdene Zuu were constructed from 1586 through to the twentieth century. The subject of this paper is the building activities of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, particularly the complex of Gurban Zuu, the oldest buildings of Erdene Zuu. I will first confirm the ground plan of the complex of Gurban Zuu, based on measurements I took there in 2010–2013, and then interpret the “black-ink inscription” discovered on the ridge purlin of Gol Zuu (Central Buddha Hall). Next, I will compare this complex with Inner Mongolian Buddhist temples of the same period. Specifically, I will compare Erdene Zuu, built by the clan of Abadai Khan (1554–1588), with Yekhe Zuu (Great Temple, Ch. Dazhao 大召), Shireetu Zuu (Ch. Xilituzhao 席力图召) and Maidari Zuu (Ch. Meidaizhao 美岱召), built by Altan Khan (1507–1582) of the Tümed tribe and his family at around the same time, in order to clarify the role of Inner Mongolia in the spread of Tibetan Buddhism to Khalkha Mongolia (Bao 2005). Finally, I will examine whether or not the spatial structure of the temple architecture of the Mongolian Empire of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was continued at Erdene Zuu, and analyze the position that Erdene Zuu occupied in the Tibetan Buddhist sphere. This comparative study investigates the origins of Erdene Zuu’s architectural spatial composition within East Asia.

This paper compares Erdene Zuu and the other temples in the following respects: First, it compares their Buddha halls in terms of their plans and their outer appearances. Regarding their plans, they draw attention to the ratio between the measurements of the widths and depths of the bays of the Buddha halls, and to whether or not there are circumambulation corridors surrounding the plans of the Buddha halls. Next, it compares the spatial compositions—that is, the layouts—of the temple complexes as a whole. An extremely prominent feature of the Gurban Zuu complex of Erdene Zuu is its layout of three multi-storied Buddha Halls placed side-by-side in a straight line. Here, this layout is called the “Three-Kondo Typology 三金堂式”, borrowing from the Japanese term used in architectural history (Kondo 金堂, literally “Golden Hall”, refers to the main Buddha hall of a Buddhist temple). Other elements for comparison are the stupas and the walls marking the boundary between the secular and the sacred spaces.

This architectural study of Erdene Zuu was based on surveys conducted during the period from 2009 to 2011 for the joint Mongolian–Japanese project on Erdene-Zuu3, of which I was a team member specializing in architectural history. My research on the architectural design of Erdene Zuu was first presented at the international conference “Erdene-zuu: Past, Present, and Future”, held in September 2011 (Bao 2011, pp. 128–45)4. The revised paper, written in Chinese, was published in the Journal of Chinese Architecture History in 2013 (Bao 2013, pp. 172–98). Through comparing the ground plans of the three Buddha Halls and the walls, and analyzing historical documents concerning the construction activities of the Altan Khan family, I concluded that the circumambulation corridors of the three Buddha Halls were influenced by the tradition of the Sakyapa school of the Mongol Empire.

My study of the architectural design of Erdene Zuu contributed to Isabelle Charleux’s arguments about the origins of the prototype of Gurban Zuu (Charleux 2017). First, she speculated that the origin of the idea of introducing a circumambulation corridor may have been influenced by the JoKhang temple in Lhasa. Second, the plan of the three Buddha Halls, which I have termed the “Three-Kondo Typology”, may have originated in Mongolian encampment traditions, where the yurt (ger) of the family head was placed in the center, and those of elder and younger brothers on each side. Third, she concluded that the architecture of Erdene Zuu was modeled after that of Maidari Zuu.

In this paper, I further examine the origin of the “Three-Kondo Typology” and the circumambulation corridor. Further, I discuss whether Maidari Zuu was built by Altan Khan before his construction of the walled city of Hohhot and Yekhe Zuu, and further question the relationship between Maidari Zuu and Erdene Zuu.

2. The Ground Plan of Erdene Zuu and the “Black-Ink Inscription”

2.1. The Layout of the Gurban Zuu Complex

Figure 1a shows the ground plan of the Gurban Zuu complex. It faces southeast, with the ratio between the breadth and depth of the site being roughly 3:2, and is rectangular, with a long frontage and short depth. The first courtyard contains three entrance gates, two side halls and two stupas (Figure 1b). The right-hand stupa is the tomb of Abadai Khan and the left-hand stupa is that of his grandson, Tüshet Khan Gombodorj.

Beyond the first courtyard is a second courtyard erected on a platform about 1.4 m high. A gate (Asar Haalga) used to stand at the center of the front of the elevated area, but now only the base stones upon which the pillars once stood remain5. Behind it, three Buddha Halls stand side-by-side in a row, which I term the “Three-Kondo Typology” (Figure 1c). The central hall is called Gol Zuu (central temple) in Mongolian. On its right is Baruun Zuu (West Buddha Hall) and on its left is Zuun Zuu (East Buddha Hall)6. At first glance, these three monumental halls look to be the same, but in fact they differ in terms of architectural style, the central hall being a multi-storied pavilion (Ch. louge 楼阁) and the left and right halls being double-eaved (Ch. chongyan 重檐) pavilions. Specifically, Gol Zuu is a two-storied louge, but without a balcony (Ch. Pingzuo 平座), and its roofs are of the gable-and-hip type (Ch. xieshan 歇山). The eastern and western halls are one-storied, with a double-eaved version of the gable-and-hip roof (Ch. chongyan xieshan 重檐歇山).

Formerly, there were two halls directly in front of Gol Zuu (Figure 2a) to the left and right. The hall on the right was Maidar Zuu, enshrining Maitreya, and the one on the left was Janraiseg Zuu, enshrining Avalokiteshvara. These two halls were built in the same period as the stupas, in the early seventeenth century. There were also buildings corresponding to gates in front of Baruun Zuu and Zuun Zuu. They were destroyed in 1937, but excavations in 2001 and 2003 have confirmed their positions, as shown in Figure 2b7.

The newly-discovered black-ink inscription makes it clear that the building of Gol Zuu was begun in 1586 and completed the following year. There are various theories about when the other two halls were built—Baruun Zuu may have been built in 1587, 1595 or 1600, and Zuun Zuu in 1588, 1610 or 1630. There is no firm proof for any of these datings. It is also said that Baruun Zuu was built by Erekhi Mergen Khan, son of Abadai Khan, his wife, and his son Labdar Darhan Noyan, and that Zuun Zuu was built by Mergen Khan’s eldest son Tüshet Khan Gombodorji and his wife (Ochir 2005, pp. 218–19). Thus, Baruun Zuu was built before Zuun Zuu.

Although the origin of Erdene Zuu remains mysterious, the lama scholar Zava Damdin (1867–1937) in his Tibetan book entitled History of Mongolian Buddhism proposed that it was founded in the Uighur era and restored by Ögedei Khan in the thirteenth century, with the current monastery being restored by Abadai Khan in the sixteenth century (Matsukawa 2010a, p. 4). Recent archaeological findings at Erdene Zuu imply that Gurban Zuu may have been built over an ancient plan of the Uighur or the Mongol Empire era.

Sometimes, out of a respect for history, a new construction might be built over the remains of a former structure. A contemporary case is the reconstruction of the Buddha Hall, the Chūkondō 中金堂, of the temple Kōfukuji 興福寺 in Nara, Japan. The new hall was built on its 1300-year-old plan and completed in 2018 (see Bao 2014, pp. 42–58). I do not deny the possibility of Zava Damdin’s theory, that Erdene Zuu was constructed utilizing an old site, but this can only apply in terms of the planar layout, since, as I argue below, the existing above-ground buildings are structurally from no earlier than the sixteenth century. An architectural study of the bracket (Ch. dougong 斗拱) system on top of the pillars allows us to distinguish the period of building to some extent. After the fifteenth century, bracket systems were not connected to tie beams, other than under the eaves of the roof (Liang 2005, p. 103). The framework of the three Buddha Halls does not employ bracket systems at all, other than under the eaves, and thus there is a strong possibility that they do not date from any earlier than the sixteenth century. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that the layout of the three Buddha Halls displays an influence from ancient times.

2.2. Interpretation of the Black-Ink Inscription

The black-ink inscription in Mongolian and Chinese is written on the ridge purlin of Gol Zuu (Figure 3). Based on the clear photograph of the ink calligraphy received from Matsukawa Takashi8, my analysis of the details of the inscription is as follows:

The Chinese inscription reads:

Shun yi wang (a) la ba ti diao (b) xiu zao er nian ci liao

順 義 王 (a) 喇叭 提吊 (b) 修造 二 年 次 了

Da ming Wan li 14 nian sui ci bing xu xia jia wu 5 yue 15 ri qi gai fo miao

大 明 萬 暦 十四 年 歳 次 丙 戍 夏 甲 午 五 月十五日 起 盖 佛 廟

mu jiang zuo tou (c) chang jin zhong deng ba ming

木 匠 作 頭 (c) 常 進 忠 等 八 名

(a)

“Shun Yi Wang” (順義王)

Shun Yi Wang (King Shun Yi, 顺义王) is the regal title conferred by the Ming court in 1571 on Altan Khan, who was active in the Tümed grasslands and was the most powerful Khan in Inner Mongolia at that time. He died in 15829 and his eldest son Dügüreng Šengge Qung Tayiji succeeded him to the title the same year. Šengge died in 1585 and his eldest son Namutai Sečen Qung Tayiji succeeded him as Khan in 1586 (Wuyunbilige 2009). He was awarded the regal title of the third Shun Yi Wang by a proclamation from the Ming court in the third month of 158710. According to the date of the inscription, the Shun Yi Wang referred to appears to be—not the first of that title, Altan Khan, who had already died—his son Šengge, the second.

According to the black-ink inscription, it was the lama of King Shun Yi who supervised the construction of the temple. A lama’s affiliation to a particular Khan was fixed. From the perspective of a building’s construction, I would like to emphasize that any project on the scale of Gol Zuu must have taken years of preparation. Before construction began in 1586, the lama may have spent years selecting the site, designing the architecture and sourcing materials and Buddha statues, etc. In other words, the lama had to have arrived earlier than the date when construction started. Asaraʏči neret teüke wrote in 1677 that, right before his death, Altan Khan sent his lama Sgomang nangso to Abatai Khan (1554–1588) at the latter’s request. Abatai Khan was 28 years old at that time11. Although it is hard to verify that Sgomang nangso was the lama mentioned in the inscription, King Shun Yi could therefore well have been Altan Khan, who died at the advanced age of 7512.

(b)

“Laba tidiao” (喇叭提吊)

There is no doubt that Laba 喇叭 means lama 喇嘛. Tidiao 提吊 can be a verb meaning “raise up”, but the Mongolian inscription on the same ridge purlin corresponding to the Chinese phrase is “tendün-i lam-a”13. This tells us that tidiao is not a verb but a noun. However, we do not know the meaning of tidiao as a noun in terms of modern Chinese. What might it mean?

I have found a word of the same pronunciation but using different characters (tidiao 提调) in various historical records of the Yuan Dynasty. An entry in the Yuandai huasuji 元代画塑记 (Paintings and Sculptures of the Yuan Dynasty) says: “On the 16th day of the eighth month of Huangqing 2 (1313), the [Yuan] emperor Renzong (Ayurbarwada Buyantu Khan) sent an edict to the official (yuanshi 院史) Yena, ordering him to have Asengge tidao make Buddha statues for the Five-bay Hall and the Octagonal Hall of the Wan’an temple (Da Shengshou Wan’ansi 大圣寿万安寺)”14. According to the Yuanshi (History of the Yuan Dynasty), juan 203, Asengge was the son of Anige. Anige (1244–1306) was a famous Nepalese artisan and artist who had been brought to the court in Khanbaliq (Ch. Dadu, modern Beijing). He is said to have been responsible for the majority of the Buddhist statues made in Khanbaliq and Zanadu (上都 Shangdu, in modern Inner Mongolia). He was made supervisor-in-chief of the bureau of all classes of artisans (renjiang zongguan人匠总管) in 1273. In 1278, he was appointed head of the Imperial Manufactories Bureau (Jiang zuo yuan 将作院)15 and promoted to the rank of dasitu 大司徒16. His most famous work was the 51m tall White Stupa (Baita 白塔), built in 1279 at the Wan’an temple (now known as Miaoyingsi 妙应寺). It still towers over Beijing.

In the Yuanshi, Asengge’s final rank was given as dasitu; we can surmise he inherited his father’s rank. As we have seen, according to the Yuandai huasuji, in 1313 Asengge’s rank was tidao. The same work speaks of the costs of food and drink for the tidao jianzao gongjiang (提调监造工匠)17. We may therefore assume that tidao was the title given to the top-ranking official who supervised building work and the making of Buddhist statues. Further, in the “new collection” of the Yuandianzhang 元典章 (Edicts of the Yuan Dynasty), it says: “tidao officials (提调官) in each district should (at the time of the accession of the emperor) as always pay special attention to carrying out (their duties).”18 Here, tidao clearly refers to a supervisory post.

What kind of post was tidao in the Yuan Dynasty and what ranking did it have? One of the Yuan bureaus was the tijusi (提举司), headed by a commissioner, tiju (提举) who was an official of the deputy fifth grade. There were also posts called tidian (提点), of the deputy fifth grade and tiling (提领), of the deputy seventh grade. However, there is no mention of tidiao (提调). It is suggestive that a late Qing example calls the person responsible for setting up new systems tidiao. The importance of the post depended on the scale of the project. For example, in the nineteenth century, when China set up an arsenal using western technology, its manager was called tidiao.

In actual fact, in sixteenth and seventeenth century Mongolia, there are many examples of Chinese characters being used incorrectly in the case of homophones in inscriptions. Thus, we may conclude that the tidiao 提吊 of the inscription has the same meaning as its homophone 提调 and refers to the chief supervisor of a construction project. If this is correct, then we can surmise that the Yuan system of craftsmen was preserved in the realm of King Shun Yi. Also, since Asengge tidiao was a lama and responsible for making Buddhist statues and building Buddhist temples we can assume that the role of the Lama tidiao of Gol Zuu was to supervise statue production and temple plans.

(c)

“Mu jiang zuo tou” (木匠作頭)

The whole sentence reads, “[Beginning] from the 15th of the fifth month, 1586, eight craftsmen, beginning with the leader of the carpenters, Chang Jinzhong, constructed the Buddhist temple.”. Here, I would like to examine the phrase mu jiang zuo tou a little further. Zuo 作 is a post supervising production, or a designation indicating a stage of construction. For example, the Yuan court had a bureau called Tiju you bazuosi 提举右八作司, which managed the workshops that produced the utensils used by the imperial house and the palace19. The specific terms applied to the various types of architectural work include carpentry (muzuo 木作), brick and tile masonry (zhuanzuo 砖作) and painted decoration (youqizuo 油漆作). Work on such items as cross beams, pillars and bracket complexes that formed part of the main structure was called “major carpentry” (damuzuo 大木作), while woodwork on the interior, such as doors, windows, partitions, ceilings and so on was called “minor carpentry” (xiaomuzuo 小木作). Craftsmen working on the various zuo were organized into groups and the manager of the work was termed zuo tou (leader of the zuo).

In a situation where one piece of construction entailed many different kinds of work, the head of carpentry occupied the position of supervisor of all the zuo. There is no question that Chang Jinzhong was the chief manager on the construction of Gol Zuu. However, though I have confirmed the names of artisans who were active in the building of the capital and of temples during the time of Altan Khan, I have not come across the name of Chang Jinzhong.20 In general, historical records written in Chinese tend not to record the names of craftsmen. Therefore, the record of the carpenter Chang Jinzhong in Erdene Zuu’s black-ink inscription is an extremely valuable historical record.

During the time of Altan Khan and later, artisans connected with temple construction were not just Mongolian but also included people from Shanxi 山西, Ningxia 宁夏, Gansu 甘肃, Kokonor 青海, Tibet and Nepal. Of the Chinese, a large number were from Shanxi. During the construction of temples and walled cities, Altan Khan often requested artisans and pigments from the Shanxi governor21. Special features of the architecture of Gol Zuu are the laying of the liuli 琉璃 tiles and the style of the bracket system; there is a strong resemblance here to the Luilidian 琉璃殿 of Maidari Zuu 美岱召 in Inner Mongolia. Since Gol Zuu also resembles the architecture of the Shanxi region, it is possible that Chang Jinzhong came from there.

The Mongolian text is slightly different from that in the Chinese inscription. According to (Matsukawa 2010b), it reads: “Včirai Khan (Abadai Khan) ordered the building of the temple in the Year of the Dog. The project was supervised by Tendün Lama and built by Craftsman Chang on the 15th of the fifth month in the Year of the Dog. May everlasting peace be given the Khan, the Queen and all living beings. Written by the Buddha disciple, successor to the Dharma.”.22

If we consider the parallel inscription in Chinese and Mongolian, lama tidiao (that is, tendün-i lam-a) refers to the person who pulls together the entire construction project, including Buddhist statues and the building work, while Chang Jinzhong (Chang Darhan) is the person responsible for the woodwork on the building.

Just prior to the construction of Erdene Zuu, Abadai Khan went to Hohhot to meet the Dalai Lama, who conferred on him the title Včirai Khan. He returned, taking with him lamas, artisans and Buddhist statues23. The black-ink inscription supports these historical facts.

3. Connections with the Temples of Inner Mongolia

It is stated widely that after Abadai Khan returned from Hohhot with the artisans, he built Erdene Zuu according to the architectural style of Yekhe Zuu (Great Temple, 大召) in Hohhot (Jin 1982; Čoyiji 1985, 2007). But was that indeed the case?

3.1. A Comparison with Yekhe Zuu 大召 at Hohhot

The earliest record of Altan Khan’s constructing a Buddhist temple is dated at 157224. Some scholars believe this to be the Liulidian (Glazed Tile Hall 琉璃殿) of Maidari Zuu (美岱召), but there is no proof.

Yekhe Zuu (Figure 4a) in Hohhot was built by Altan Khan in 1579 after his return from Kokonor (in present Qinghai province). The silver statue of Sakyamuni was made by a Nepalese craftsman. The temple was enlarged in 1640, and in 1698 the tiling of the main Buddha Hall was renewed using yellow liuli tiles (Erdencang 1991, p. 65).

Figure 4b shows the layout of the temple complex of Yekhe Zuu. It differs from the plan of Gurban Zuu, with its three halls side-by-side, emphasizing instead a vertical axis. However, its main gate, its Hall of the Heavenly Kings and its Da zang jing ku (Repository of the Buddhist Scriptures) are thought to date from the time of its enlargement in the 1640s.

What Yekhe Zuu and Gurban Zuu have in common is the placement of the funerary stupas. In 1587, a blue hall was erected to the right of the Sakyamuni Hall (now the main Buddha Hall of Yekhe Zuu), and a stupa for Altan Khan was placed there25. A stupa for the third Dalai Lama (1543–1588) was built in 1588 north of the Sakyamuni Hall. In the Gurban Zuu complex, there are two stupas in the courtyard beneath the elevated area of Gol Zuu, belonging to Abadai Khan and his grandson Tüshet Khan Gombodorj. Although the planar arrangement of stupas is different between the two temples, they share a similarity in that stupas have been built for the Khans and the Dalai Lama. Going further back in time, we find memorial halls26 for Kublai Khan and his son Yuzong 裕宗27 built to the west and east respectively of the main hall of Da sheng shou wan an si 大圣寿万安寺 in Khanbalic (Dadu, now Beijing). In this sense, both Yekhe Zuu and Erdene Zuu continued the tradition of the Mongol Khans, who were followers of Tibetan Buddhism, of placing halls or stupas to memorialize themselves around the Buddha halls they had built.

Funerary stupas were found not only at Yekhe Zuu and Erdene Zuu but also at Mai dari Zuu. There were three such stupas at Maidari Zuu: two white stupas in front of the Luilidian (Glazed Tile Hall) and a sandalwood stupa inside the Temple of the Empress Dowager (Taihou miao 太后庙). Due to the similarity in the spatial arrangement of the funerary stupas, Charleux concluded that Erdene Zuu has more influence from Maidari Zuu than from Yekhe Zuu (Charleux 2017, p. 359).

However, a study of the owners of the funerary stupas suggests a closer relationship between Erdene Zuu and Yekhe Zuu. At Yekhe Zuu, the two stupas were the tombs of Altan Khan and the third Dalai Lama; in Erdene Zuu, the two square stupas were the tombs of Aadai Khan and his grandson, respectively. The third Dalai Lama and Abadai Khan both died in the same year, 1588. Their funerary stupas would have been constructed in the same period. The four deceased had the same political status in that they all propagated Tibetan Buddhism. However, the owners of the funerary stupas in front of Maidari Zuu’s Liulidian remain unknown because both stupas were destroyed and no records were left. The most significant stupa in the Maidari Zuu was the 3 m high sandalwood stupa of the Queen Mother, which was placed at the center of the Temple of the Empress Dowager 太后庙. This stupa, together with two boxes of funerary objects, were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution in 1966 (Wang et al. 2009, p. 46). Although the identity of the Queen Mother is yet to be solved, the death years of Altan Khan’s third wife (1612) and his granddaughter-in-law (1626) indicate that the Temple of the Dowager was built between those years (Bao 2013, p. 191).

The central halls of Gurban Zuu and Yekhe Zuu are very different. Gol Zuu (Figure 5) is a single Buddha hall, with no assembly hall attached. It is also different in the 3:2 ratio of its rectangular shape. By contrast, the central hall of Yekhe Zuu is constructed in the amalgamated form of an assembly hall in front and a Buddha hall behind (Figure 6). The ratio between the breadth and length of the building is 1:2. The Buddha hall itself is square in shape.

3.2. A Comparison with Shireetu Zuu and Maidari Zuu

I would next like to compare Gurban Zuu with Shireetu Zuu (席力图召, 1585) in Hohhot (Figure 7). The oldest of Shireetu Zuu’s halls is now called the “Ancient Buddha Hall” 古佛殿 and it has been renovated. Figure 8 is a reconstruction of the ground plan that I made based on the theory of archaeologist Su Bai (Su 1994). It is the same as the ground plan of the ambulatory of Gol Zuu at Erdene Zuu (Bao 2011).

Maidari Zuu (Figure 9) lies about 100 km west of Hohhot. It resembles Erdene Zuu closely in that it is surrounded by an irregular square wall a little under 200 m in length. It is also similar in that the main halls are aligned on an axis quite different to that of the wall. There are a large number of buildings within the wall—the central hall (an assembly hall in front and a Buddha hall behind), the three-storied Liuli dian (Glazed Tile Hall 琉璃殿), the temple of the Empress Dowager 太后庙, temples of the ten thousand Buddhas 万佛殿to the east and the west—but there is no positive proof as to when each was constructed (Zhang 2010). We know only that the tower of the main gate 城门 was built in 1606 (from an inscription in Chinese characters on a stone tablet)28. According to the Erdeni-yin tobči, the wife of Dayičing eji, who built the gate, had a statue of Maitreya (Mong. Maidari) made in 1606 (Hidehiro Okada 2004, p. 298). However, it is not clear whether or not she was responsible for the construction of the building in which the statue was enshrined—the main hall that combined the Assembly Hall and the Buddha Hall. The four walls of this building are uniformly decorated with wall paintings; particularly famous is one on the west wall of the family of Altan Khan revering the Buddha.

Behind the main hall of Maidari Zuu is the three-storied Liuli dian 琉璃殿 with its green-glazed tiles (Figure 10). It no longer contains any Buddhist statues but originally it had clay statues of the Buddhas of the Three Realms. Seen in terms of the structural remains of Buddhist temples in Inner Mongolia, this building resembles most closely Gol Zuu at Erdene Zuu. A comparative study of both buildings should be undertaken in the future.

The descendants of King Shun yi (Altan Khan) lived here until the beginning of the twentieth century. It is reported that the ancestral graves of the family lie on the west side of the mountain behind the temple (Wang and Yao 2003, pp. 75–79). Li Yiyun (Li 1983, pp. 215–19) therefore hypothesizes that Maidari Zuu, which is surrounded by walls, is Altan Khan’s Da ban sheng cheng 大板升城, while Wang Leiyi proposes that the Liuli dian is Altan Khan’s palace (Wang and Yao 2003, pp. 75–79).

Although the site of Maidari Zuu belonged to the Altan Khan family, it can be argued that it was the walled city of Da ban sheng cheng 大板升城 built by Altan Khan in 1557 and the Liuli dian 琉璃殿 was the palace built by Altan Khan in 1565 (Bao 2013). I demonstrated in my doctoral dissertation of 2003 that Da ban sheng cheng was the predecessor of Hohhot (Bao 2003, pp. 39–56). After Altan Khan signed the Longqing Treaty (Long qing yi he 隆慶議和) with the Ming court in 1571, he built Hohhot as his capital to commemorate the lost Dadu (later known as Beijing). The square-shaped walled city of Hohhot was completed in 1575. It is reasonable to believe that Altan Khan’s palace was inside Hohhot. During his trip to Hohhot, Abadai Khan would have visited Yekhe Zuu and the walled city of Hohhot. It is worth mentioning that Maidari Zuu was one of many walled cities at that time.

From the comparisons made above, we can say that in its earliest form, Erdene Zuu was not built as a direct imitation of Yekhe Zuu but used as a model of the many temples in the Tümed region centering on Hohhot, especially those built by the family of Altan Khan.

4. The Perspective of Buddhist Temple Architecture in East Asia

Here, I would like to extend my comparative view both regionally and chronologically. Specifically, I want to consider Erdene Zuu in terms of East Asia as a whole, and over a period extending down from the time of the Mongol Empire of the thirteenth century. For my present purposes, I define East Asia as including Tibet, Kokonor 青海, the historic territory of Xixia 西夏故地, China proper 中国内地 and Korea.

4.1. Connections with Temples in the Period of the Mongolian Empire

The three Buddha Halls of Gurban Zuu at Erdene Zuu were laterally aligned. This unique layout has no resemblance to existing temples in Tibet (Chen 2007), Kokonor (Jiang and Liu 1996) and Inner Mongolia. However, the layout of three Buddha halls in one courtyard can be found in the the temple Asukadera 飛鳥寺, the first full-scale Buddhist temple in Japan. The plan of this temple built in the sixth century is called “one pagoda and three kondō” (Asuka Shiryōkan 2013, p. 18). Kondō 金堂 is the Japanese term for Buddha halls built between the Asuka 飛鳥 and early Heian 平安periods (6th to 12th century). Hence, I have coined the term “Three-Kondo Typology 三金堂式” for the unique layout of Gurban Zuu.

The “Three-Kondo Typology” layout cannot be found in temples existing today in Tibet, Kokonor or Inner Mongolia. The lateral placement of temple buildings is a particular feature of temple layout in the earliest period. Where did it come from?

A very early example can be found at Hwang yong sa (Imperial Dragon Temple) in the Korean Peninsula (Figure 11). Here we find a “one pagoda and three kondo” layout, with the Eastern Buddha Hall, Central Buddha Hall and Western Buddha Hall side-by-side. In front of the Central Buddha Hall, there is a nine-storied pagoda 80 m (225 chi) high that was built in 1096. The temple and its pagoda were burned down by Mongol forces in 1238 (Yun 2003, pp. 185–86). Following this, a pagoda (興元閣 Xing yuan ge, Pavilion of the Rise of the Yuan) 90 m (300 chi) tall was suddenly built in Karakorum (Bao 2018, pp. 343–56). According to an inscription, this pagoda was completed at a date later than the attack on Hwang yong sa. Further, Hwang yong sa was a very important building, in the sense that the Korean Peninsula was first united and ruled over as a result of its construction.

It was customary for the Mongols to take artisans from the territories they had conquered back to Mongolia. Building a pagoda 90 m high could not in itself have been conceived in the grasslands without some kind of stimulus. The tallest existing wooden Buddhist pagoda in the world is in Shanxi in China. The Sakyamuni pagoda, built in 1056 during the Liao (Khitan) Dynasty, is 67 m tall with an octagonal plan. Compared with this, the wooden pagoda of Hwang yong sa in Korea resembles the Xing yuan ge in Karakorum more closely, both in shape and height.

If we assume that the Xing yuan ge was influenced by Hwang yong sa, then it is also possible that it received the temple layout in terms of the “Three-Kondo Typology” from there as well. This plan can be seen in other temples in Khanbaliq (Dadu, now Beijing), such as the Wan an temple 萬安寺 (1272), Pu qing temple 普慶寺 (1300–1320) and Hu sheng temple 護聖寺 (1329). The fact that the halls to the left and right of the Central Buddha Hall of the Hu sheng temple are called the West and East Halls is a point of similarity with Erdene’s Gurban Zuu.

Thus, in view of the fact that the “Three-Kondo Typology” layout of Gurban Zuu cannot be found in Inner Mongolia, Tibet or Kokonor, we must, at the present point of time, consider the likelihood of there having been the influence at Erdene Zuu of the temple layout of the period of the Mongolian Empire.

The “Three-Kondo Typology” was revived in the sixteenth century after a time lapse of more than two hundred years. It may have been due to a desire to revive an ancient classical form at that time. The urban planning of the Yuan Dadu 元大都 was modeled after the grid theory set out in the Zhou li kao gong ji 周礼考工记, published 1400 years ago; the court of Altan Khan adopted the official title of Tidiao that had been established in the Yuan Dynasty. The practice of building over the remaining structure could be another answer to the revitalization of the “Three-Kondo Typology”. The remains in the former Mongol capital city were considered to be sacred sites for building new temples.

4.2. The Circumambulation Path of Buddha Halls

There is one further feature of the plan of Gurban Zuu: the plan of the Buddha Hall in each of the three buildings is surrounded by an ambulatory. This is called golne zam (circumambulation path) in Mongolian. It is a space for lamas and believers to circumambulate the temple clockwise as part of their worship, and cannot be found in temples in China proper; rather, it is a special development within Tibetan Buddhist temples.

The earliest example of an ambulatory is found at the Samye monastery 桑耶寺 in Tibet, attached to the main temple (utse, 乌策大殿) built in the second half of the eighth century (Su 1996, p. 190). At the Ramoche (小召) temple in Lhasa, an internal ambulatory was added in the twelfth century. In fourteenth century Tibet, an ambulatory attached to the Buddha hall and the assembly hall was very popular, but by the sixteenth century, it appears that the ambulatory had been discontinued. Eventually, only the Karma Kagyu sect retained it.

Small temples of the Gelug sect were built to a plan of a rectangular Buddha hall with an attached ambulatory, though this plan was not peculiar to that sect, but is considerably older, for the central halls of the Gandan monastery 甘丹寺, the Drepung monastery 哲蚌寺 and the Sera monastery 色拉寺 do not have a rectangular plan but rather a square one, and there are no ambulatories attached to their walls. On the contrary, it can be confirmed that even before the Gelug sect was formed, there were already Buddha halls following the rectangular plan, for example the Buddha Hall of Khara-Khoto 黑城, built before 1380 in the area of the former Xixia 西夏 Kingdom under the Mongolian Empire,29 and the Qu tan dian (1392) of the Qu tan temple 瞿昙寺, the first Tibetan Buddhist temple in Kokonor. Later examples include the Wan sui dian 万岁殿 (1427) of the Miao yin temple 妙因寺 in Lian cheng 连城, Gansu 甘肃 (Zhao 1994, p. 19) and the Ancient Buddha Hall (1585) at Shireetu Zuu in Hohhot. It was a descendant of Togon 脱欢 who had received the title of An ding wang 安定王 (King An ding) from the Yuan (Dai Ön ulus) who established Lian cheng as his capital (Zhao 1994). Ledu 乐都, the location of the Qu tan temple, was also part of the territory of this Mongol ruler.

As we can see from the above, rectangular Buddha halls with an attached ambulatory can be seen in regions ruled by the Mongol Empire, as well as in Kokonor, ruled by a Mongol Khan after the fall of the Mongol Empire, the Gansu and Xixia regions and Inner Mongolia. These historical facts tell us that the rectangular hall with an ambulatory found at Erdene Zuu was not a style introduced contemporaneously from Tibet but was a legacy of the time of the Mongolian Empire.

5. Conclusions

The building of Erdene Zuu between the end of the sixteenth century and the first part of the seventeenth can be called a reconstruction in the former territory of the Mongolian Empire in accord with accumulated wisdom. By “Mongolian Empire”, I mean in a narrow sense the capital Karakorum, but in the broader sense the Korean peninsula, China proper (Beijing etc.), the land of Xixia 西夏, Tibet and Kokonor 青海. The ”Three-Kondo Typology” layout of the Buddha halls, the internal worship corridors surrounding the Buddha halls, and walls at the boundary of Erdene Zuu monastery to differentiate sacred and secular (Figure 12) can be considered to have inherited the traditions of the Mongol Empire.

The plan of city walls with towers can also be seen in Hohhot (1572–1575) and at Maidari Zuu. The ground plan of Maidari Zuu closely resembles that of Erdene Zuu. Although recent archaeological excavations have discovered the foundation of a thirteenth-century wall under the Erdene Zuu wall that was constructed at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the thirteenth-century wall no longer existed at the end of the sixteenth century, so the direct influence for Erdene Zuu building a monastery wall must have come from Inner Mongolia, which Abatai Khan had visited. Also, the spatial layout of the stupas of the temple founders at Gurban Zuu was influenced by Yekhe Zuu in Hohhot.

The wooden timber structural techniques employed at Erdene Zuu came from Inner Mongolia. Of great importance were the tidiao lama and artisans like carpenters who came from Hohhot bringing architectural techniques with them. The skill to build multi-storied buildings, brought from Shanxi in China via Hohhot, was utilized in the construction of the Buddha halls at Gurban Zuu. Existing examples of such architecture older than Gurban Zuu include the Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva Hall 观音阁 in the Du le temple 独乐寺 in Liao 辽, and the Hall of the Ten Thousand Buddhas 万佛阁 (1443) in the Ming 明 period Zhi hua temple 智化寺 in Beijing. However, Erdene Zuu is the only example where three multi-story Buddha halls are arranged side-by-side. Gurban Zuu harmonized elements rooted in its location on the site of the Mongol capital of Karakorum with newly introduced elements.

In summary, when Mongols introduced Tibetan Buddhist architecture to Mongolia from the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries, they did not simply reproduce Tibetan or Chinese buildings. Instead, whether in the layout of temples or the construction of individual buildings, they created unique spatial patterns for Mongolian Tibetan Buddhist temples based on blending local traditions with wooden construction technology borrowed from mainland China.