The history of the temple

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 There are many temples and shrines in Kyoto, where many Japanese people want to live in at least once in their lives. Many people visit temples and shrines for sightseeing every year, but most of them might not know what the temples are, what the shrines are and what the difference of them is. This report describes the history of the temples, the difference between the temples and the shrines, and the features of the head temples.
  The temples are religious institutions of Buddhism. Buddhism is the religion which was introduced from India to Japan. They enshrines Buddha. Buddha statues are set in temples and Buddha monks live and hold religious rites there. Originally, monks, who dropped their own home, did rough sleeping every night. (Becoming a monk is called “Shukke” in Japan. It means dropping his own home.) However, in the rainy season, the problem that they stamped insects to death sometimes occurred. In Buddhism, killing any lives unnecessary like this is thought as evil deed. In order to avoid this problem, the first temple was built. After that, during the rainy season, they started meditating in temples without going outside. So, in early times, monks lived in temples only in the rainy season.

  The word meaning “temple” was made in China. It is written in Kanji and pronounced “JI.” Its original meaning was “public office.” At that time, when Buddha monks were invited from India, they stayed at those public offices. Furthermore, the task of translating Buddhist scriptures was conducted there with monks. Consequently, the place where monks always were in began to be called “JI” means the temple. In Japan, which is the country into which Kanji was introduced from China, people also use this Kanji “JI” to express the temples. It is pronounced “Tera” in Japan.
As described above, the temples are the place worshipping Buddha.  In contrast, the shrines are the places worshipping the Gods. Additionally, in contrast that the religion worshipping Buddha is called Buddhism, the religion worshipping Gods is called Shintoism. Originally, in Japan, when people prayed to Gods, they prayed directly toward the objects that were believed that Gods lived in. These objects are called “Shintai” which means the body of Gods in Kanji. At first, Shintoism do not have any buildings. However, after the Buddhism was introduced to Japan in 6th century, many temples began to be built. As competition with that, some schools of Shintoism built buildings, too. These buildings are the shrines. Some shrines have only halls of worship, do not have main halls. Moreover, some of other schools have no their own shrines till today. People in these schools pray directly toward Shintai in order to keep up their tradition.
Some particular Buddha schools have their head temples called “Honzan.” Honzan is the specific temple which acts special role at its school. According to its role, Honzan is classified some terms like “Sohonzan,” “Daihonzan” and “Bekkakuhonzan.” The usage of these terms is different between schools and some of them is not used at some schools. Although the word “Honzan” means “main mountain” in Kanji, even if the head temple is not located in mountains, it is often called “Honzan.” In the Edo Era, Jodo Shinshu, which is the school of Buddhism, stood against the government. In order to take control of whole world of Buddhism, the government made all temples affiliated with head temples of their schools and controlled only head temples. These temples which are affiliated with head temples is called “Matsuji” which means marginal temple in Kanji. This system was called “Honmatsu” system. Owing to this system, the government succeeded in making it easy to take control of them.

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