LOS ESPACIOS SAGRADOS DE JAPÓN: SANTARIOS SHINTOÍSTAS Y TEMPLOS BUDISTAS

Abstract

Based on a sentence of Mircea Eliade, The Sacred is opposed to the Profane, the expression of the Sacred in art is a kind of Hierophany, that appears in any culture from the old times. In Japan, there are signs of the Sacred in the autochthonous Shintoism, and lateron in the accepted Buddhism from the continent. In Shintoist buildings there is a direct contact with Nature (which is a Sacred space in itself), and in the the inner structure of them there is the Axis Mundi that unites heaven with earth and the profound regions under it. The pagoda, being a symbol of the Buddha, is a sacred space in itself. In Buddhism, the Sacred space is separated from outside in the temple limits, too.