IN the Heian period the re-emergence of a national taste, much more sophisticated and self-confident than that of the archaic age, led in secular architecture to the perfection of a residential type almost totally different from the Chinese. In Buddhism, where respect for the authority of the continent remained at a high level, the change was naturally less extreme. It was none the less an irresistible process. None of the surviving Heian temple buildings (except the obstinately conservative pagoda type) could be mistaken for a Chinese construction, and some are almost as radically altered as the houses of their time.

Important changes were already noticeable in the first generations of the new era. The shift of capital has often been explained by the desire of the secular government to free itself from the stranglehold of the great Nara monasteries. It is clear at any rate that the designers of the new city took care to establish the formal subordination of religion to the state. The two large Buddhist establishments for which they provided were tied rigidly to the city plan, in identical lots balanced on east and west of the grand central avenue. Their acreage was generous, but on the scale of a prime minister's compound (while Tōdaiji had vied with the palace itself). The novel prudence of the government was supplemented by a dramatic transformation within Japanese Buddhism. The two Tantric sects transplanted from China at the end of the eighth century, Tendai and Shingon, brought not only new doctrines and a new kind of religious art, but also a zeal for reform within the church. The founders of the esoteric sects adopted the lives of hermits; and the headquarters they established, deep in the mountains - the Shingon on Kōyasan south-east of Ōsaka, the Tendai on Hieizan north-east of Kyōto -- were in their lifetimes little more than collections of huts. The testament of the Tendai leader, Dengyō Daishi, read on his death in 822, enjoined on his followers a cheerful poverty, in words that at the same time implied a sharp rebuke for other Buddhists grown soft and luxurious. Whether the motives behind this austerity were devout or calculating, the result was politically effective against the Nara monopoly, and so a further discouragement to building on the old scale.

The seizure of imperial favour by Tendai and Shingon ensured a long life for the type of mountain monastery they believed in. Primitive simplicity was quickly lost, to be sure. As the orders gained in power and wealth and their establishments spread, the main headquarters at least were dignified by an architecture of imposing size and magnificence. What remained from the first generation was a sensible irregularity of general plan. The mountain sites were of all kinds, but in most a formal Chinese layout was clearly impossible, had it been desired. At the Shingon Kongōbuji on Kōyasan, the central cleared area is a fairly spacious and level one that might have permitted at least a minimal Chinese scheme. Instead, as if by a deliberate rejection, the main elements, though they face south,

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