Soga no Umako builds Asuka-dera, Japan’s first great Buddhist temple

After the death of Emperor Yōmei in 587 the rivalry between the Soga, patrons of Buddhism, and the Mononobe turned into open war. That year Soga no Umako and the princes on his side, among them the young Umayado, later revered as Prince Shōtoku, defeated and killed Mononobe no Moriya; according to the Nihon shoki, Umako had vowed to build a temple if he won. In 588 the king of Baekje sent Buddha relics, monks and craftsmen — two temple carpenters, a master of the metal finial of a pagoda, four tile makers and a painter — and the house of Konoha, ancestor of the Asuka clothmakers, on the Makamihara plain in Asuka was pulled down to make room for the temple.

Work went on for years. The Buddha hall and cloisters were begun in 592, and on 21 February 593, says the Nihon shoki, relics were placed in the foundation stone of the pagoda’s central pillar; excavations in 1957 found the relic chamber in this stone, 2.7 m underground — the deposit had been taken out and reburied after the pagoda burned in 1196 — with beads, gold rings, gold and silver plates, small armour plates and knives, offerings that place the temple on the threshold between the Kofun and Asuka periods. The chronicle records the temple as finished in the eleventh month of 596, when Umako’s son Zentoku was put in charge and the monks Eji from Goguryeo and Esō from Baekje took up residence. Many scholars now think the chronicle mistook the completion of the pagoda for that of the whole temple: the halls were finished gradually, and the main image, a bronze Shakyamuni triad by Tori Busshi, was commissioned only in 605. The excavations of 1956–1957 revealed the original plan: a pagoda surrounded by three golden halls within a cloister.

Umako dominated the court. In 592 he had Emperor Sushun assassinated and placed his niece Suiko on the throne, the first reigning empress in the traditional list; in 593, according to the Nihon shoki, she made Prince Umayado crown prince and regent. Much of the later tradition about the prince is considered legendary, but Asuka-dera is well attested by texts and excavation. When the capital moved to Nara, the temple was re-established there as Gangō-ji (716 or 718), while the old site in Asuka remains a small temple around the ancient Buddha.