, also known as or are large
bells found in
Buddhist temples throughout Japan, used to summon the monks to prayer and to demarcate periods of time. Rather than containing a clapper, are struck from the outside, using either a handheld mallet or a beam suspended on ropes.
The bells are usually made from bronze, using a form of
expendable mould casting. They are typically augmented and ornamented with a variety of
bosses, raised bands and inscriptions. The earliest of these bells in Japan date to around 600
CE, although the general design is of much earlier Chinese origin and shares some of the features seen in ancient Chinese bells. The bells' penetrating and pervasive tone carries over considerable distances, which led to their use as signals, timekeepers and alarms. In addition, the sound of the bell is thought to have supernatural properties; it is believed, for example, that it can be heard in
the underworld.
The spiritual significance of means that they play an important role in Buddhist ceremonies, particularly the
New Year and
Bon
Bon or Bön (), also known as Yungdrung Bon (, ), is the indigenous Tibetan religion which shares many similarities and influences with Tibetan Buddhism.Samuel 2012, pp. 220–221. It initially developed in the tenth and eleventh centuries but ...
festivals. Throughout Japanese history these bells have become associated with stories and legends, both fictional, such as the Benkei Bell of
Mii-dera, and historical, such as the bell of
Hōkō-ji. In modern times, have become symbols of
world peace
World peace is the concept of an ideal state of peace within and among all people and nations on Earth. Different cultures, religions, philosophies, and organizations have varying concepts on how such a state would come about.
Various relig ...
.
Origin
The is derived from the ( in Japanese), an ancient Chinese court instrument comprising a series of tuned bells. One larger additional bell, which eventually developed into the , was used as a tuning device and a summons to listeners to attend a recital.
According to legend, the earliest may have come from China to Japan via the Korean Peninsula. The records that
Ōtomo no Satehiko brought three bronze bells back to Japan in 562 as spoils of war from
Goguryeo
Goguryeo (37 BC – 668 AD) (; ; Old Korean: Guryeo) also later known as Goryeo (; ; Middle Korean: 고ᇢ롕〮, ''kwòwlyéy''), was a Korean kingdom which was located on the northern and central parts of the Korea, Korean Peninsula an ...
.
Construction
are cast in a single piece using two moulds, a core and a shell, in a process that is largely unchanged since the
Nara period
The of the history of Japan covers the years from 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the capita ...
(710–794).
The core is constructed from a dome of stacked bricks made from hardened sand, whilst the shell is made using a
strickle board. This is a large, flat, wooden board shaped like a cross-section of the bell, which is rotated around a vertical axis to shape the clay used for the mould. Inscriptions and decorations are then carved or impressed into the clay.
The shell fits over the core to create a narrow gap, into which the molten bronze is poured at a temperature of over . The ratio of the alloy is usually around 17:3 copper to tin; the exact admixture (as well as the speed of the cooling process) can alter the tone of the end product. After the metal has cooled and solidified, the mould is removed by breaking it, therefore a new one has to be created for each bell.
The process has a high failure rate; only around 50 per cent of castings are successful on the first attempt, without cracks or imperfections.
[
]
The casting is traditionally accompanied by the chanting of Buddhist sutra
''Sutra'' ()Monier Williams, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, Entry fo''sutra'' page 1241 in Indian literary traditions refers to an aphorism or a collection of aphorisms in the form of a manual or, more broadly, a ...
s, which may go on for several hours. Buddhist prayer papers, sprigs of sacred mulberry and other ceremonial offerings are added to the molten bronze during the founding process.
There are several parts to a temple bell:
* , the dragon-shaped handle at the top of the bell, by which it is carried or hung
* , the domed crown of the bell
* , bosses around the upper part of the bell that improve its resonance
* , lower rim
* , striking panel, a reinforced spot where the bell is struck. It is often decorated with a Buddhist lotus or chrysanthemum motif.
* , decorative horizontal bands
* , inscription (often giving the bell's history)
* , the hanging wooden beam used to strike the
Some bells retain linear impressions arising from joints in the mould used; they are not removed during fettling but are regarded as an aspect of the bell's overall beauty.[ The bell's appearance and sound are intended to be in keeping with Japan's aesthetic.][
]
Sound
Japanese temple bells are struck externally with either a hammer or a suspended beam rather than with an internal clapper. The sound of the bell is made up of three parts. First is the , the impact of the strike. A well-made bell should produce a clean, clear tone. The initial sound of the strike is immediately followed by the prolonged , the reverberation that continues to sound after the bell is struck. This is higher in pitch and is a low rumble with a sorrowful air, rich in harmonics; it lasts for up to ten seconds. Finally comes the or decay, the resonance that is heard as the vibration of the bell dies away, which can last up to a minute. There are also continuous harmonic overtone
An overtone is any resonant frequency above the fundamental frequency of a sound. (An overtone may or may not be a harmonic) In other words, overtones are all pitches higher than the lowest pitch within an individual sound; the fundamental i ...
s heard throughout the tolling of the bell.[ These multiple tones create a complex pitch profile.]
The low tone and deep resonance of the bell allow the sound to carry over great distances; a large can be heard up to away on a clear day.[ The pitch of the bell is carefully judged by its creators, and a difference of a single ]hertz
The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or Cycle per second, cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in ter ...
in the fundamental frequency can require that the bell be recast from scratch.[
]
Function and significance
are sited in Buddhist temples, usually in a specially designated building or tower called a . They are used to mark the passage of time, and to call the monks to liturgical services. In Buddhism, the bell's sound is considered to be calming and to induce a suitable atmosphere for meditation. Because of their shape (with sloped shoulders and a flat base) the bells are seen as representations of the sitting Buddha, and are accorded similar respect; those striking the bell will first make three bows towards it, just as they would before a statue of Buddha.[
The sonorous sound of the bell was also used to warn of impending typhoons and as a general alert.] Because the ringing of a temple bell could be heard over considerable distances, it was also sometimes used for other signalling purposes; there are records of temple bells being used for military communication from as far back as the Genpei War
The was a national civil war between the Taira clan, Taira and Minamoto clan, Minamoto clans during the late Heian period of Japan. It resulted in the downfall of the Taira and the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate under Minamoto no Yori ...
(1180–1185 CE). Smaller versions were subsequently cast for battlefield use, as the large temple bells were too heavy and unwieldy to transport. These smaller were used primarily as alarms to warn of enemy attacks; commands were given using drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a ...
s and conches.
As part of Japanese New Year
The is an annual festival that takes place in Japan. Since 1873, the official Japanese New Year has been celebrated according to the Gregorian calendar, on January 1 of each year, . Prior to 1872, traditional events of the Japanese New Year wer ...
celebrations, people queue to ring the temple bells 108 times in a ceremony known as ; the 108 peals of the bell are intended to purge humanity of the 108 earthly temptations. During the Buddhist Bon Festival
or just is a fusion of the ancient Japanese belief in ancestral spirits and a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of one's ancestors. This Buddhist custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people return to ance ...
, a special type of called an is rung. This bell is hung above a well, and it is believed that the sound of the bell resonates down the well into the underworld
The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld.
...
, to summon the spirits of the dead. At the end of the festival, another , called an , is rung to send the spirits back and to represent the end of the summer.
During World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
the demand for metal for the war effort resulted in many bells being melted down for scrap. As a result, those that survived are generally regarded as important historic artifacts. More than 70,000 bells (approximately 90 per cent of the then in existence) were destroyed in this way.[ However, rapid production of bells during the post-war period meant that by 1995 the number of temple bells in Japan had returned to pre-war levels.][
In the latter half of the 20th century, the World Peace Bell Association was set up in Japan, with the purpose of funding and casting temple bells to be placed around the world as symbols of peace. have also been cast in response to natural disasters such as the ]2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
On 11 March 2011, at 14:46:24 Japan Standard Time, JST (05:46:24 UTC), a 9.0–9.1 Submarine earthquake, undersea megathrust earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region. It lasted approx ...
; several affected communities commissioned bells to commemorate the event.[
have occasionally been used as musical instruments in modern compositions. The recorded sound of temple bells was used in Mayuzumi Toshiro's piece ''Olympic Campanology'', used to open the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. A temple bell is also used in performances of Jacob Druckman's piece ''Lamia'', in which it is rung while placed on top of a ]kettledrum
Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally ...
. Modern composers for percussion have sometimes used the temple bell to replace the now common sound of the orchestral tam-tam.
Notable examples
The oldest known (and the oldest bell in the world still in use) is the Okikicho bell at Myōshin-ji, which was cast in 698. The largest is the bell at Chion-in, which was cast in 1636 and weighs 70 metric tons. It requires a team of 17 to sound it.
During the 17th century the was also a symbol of a temple's leadership; possession of the bell indicated ownership of the associated temple. As a result, bells were often stolen; the folk hero Benkei is said to have dragged the three-ton bell of Mii-dera temple up Mount Hiei
is a mountain to the northeast of Kyoto, lying on the border between the Kyoto and Shiga Prefectures, Japan.
The temple of Enryaku-ji, the first outpost of the Japanese Tendai (Chin. Tiantai) sect of Buddhism, was founded atop Mount Hiei by ...
during one such theft. The deep scratches in the Benkei bell, which is still displayed at Mii-dera, are said in the legend to be the result of Benkei's kicking the bell all the way back to the monastery when he discovered that it would not toll for him. The Benkei bell is also associated with the legendary hero Tawara Tōda, who originally donated it to the Mii-dera temple. He acquired it as a gift from the dragon deity Ryūjin, after saving the god from a giant centipede.
After the Hōkō-ji temple burned down at the start of the 17th century, Toyotomi Hideyori
was the son and designated successor of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the general who united all of Japan toward the end of the Sengoku period. His mother, Yodo-dono, was the niece of Oda Nobunaga.
Early life
Born in 1593, he was Hideyoshi's sec ...
sponsored its reconstruction in 1610, and commissioned a large bell as part of that process. The bell's inscription drew the ire of Tokugawa Ieyasu
Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; 31 January 1543 – 1 June 1616) was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was the third of the three "Gr ...
, who had become after wresting power from the Toyotomi clan when Hideyori's father Hideyoshi died. The inscription, , broke up the characters for the shogun's name () with the kanji
are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...
for "peace" (). Tokugawa assumed Toyotomi was implying that peace would require the "dismemberment" of the Tokugawa. He used the subsequent dispute as an excuse to wage war on the Toyotomi clan, resulting in the siege of Osaka
A siege () . is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or by well-prepared assault. Siege warfare (also called siegecrafts or poliorcetics) is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict charact ...
and the eventual destruction of the Toyotomi.
A bronze was among the gifts presented to Commodore Matthew Perry upon his arrival in Japan. Cast by bellmakers from the Suwa family of Higo Province
was an old province of Japan in the area that is today Kumamoto Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū. It was sometimes called , with Hizen Province. Higo bordered on Chikugo, Bungo, Hyūga, Ōsumi, and Satsuma Provinces.
History
The cas ...
, it is now held in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...
.
The Noh play , one of the only Noh plays to feature a prop
A prop, formally known as a (theatrical) property, is an object actors use on stage or screen during a performance or screen production. In practical terms, a prop is considered to be anything movable or portable on a stage or a set, distinct ...
of any significant size, is based on a legend concerning the bell of Dōjō-ji. In the story a woman named Kiyohime, the spurned mistress of a Buddhist priest named Anchin, traps her lover inside the temple's bell and then kills him by turning into a snake, coiling around the bell, and cooking him in it. The play was later adapted for kabuki
is a classical form of Theatre of Japan, Japanese theatre, mixing dramatic performance with Japanese traditional dance, traditional dance. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily stylised performances, its glamorous, highly decorated costumes ...
, entitled .
The bell of the Nishi-Arai Daishi Temple in Tokyo was removed in 1943, to be melted down as part of the Japanese war effort. The crew of the USS ''Pasadena'' found it on a scrap heap and took it with them to the US as a war trophy, donating it to the city of Pasadena
Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial d ...
; the city council returned the bell to Tokyo in 1955. A similar story accompanies the bell of Manpuku-ji, which was taken to the United States on the USS ''Boston'' after the war; in this case, however, the Sendai
is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Miyagi Prefecture and the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,098,335 in 539,698 households, making it the List of cities in Japan, twelfth most populated city in Japan.
...
authorities allowed the bell to remain in Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
as a symbol of friendship between the two cities. The Boston bell is the last WWII in the United States.
The Japanese Peace Bell
The Japanese Peace Bell is a bell donated to the United Nations Headquarters in New York City via the United Nations Association of Japan in June 1954. It is a bonsho (a Buddhist temple bell) that is 60 centimeters in diameter, 1 meter in height, ...
at the headquarters of the United Nations
, image = Midtown Manhattan Skyline 004 (cropped).jpg
, image_size = 275px
, caption = View of the complex from Long Island City in 2021; from left to right: the Secretariat, Conference, and General Assembly buil ...
in New York was donated by Japan in 1954 as a symbol of world peace. It was created using metal reclaimed from coins and medals provided by donors from around the globe. Similar bells representing a commitment to the cause of world peace can be found in many civic areas, including Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui has b ...
's Peace Memorial Park. In 1995, the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Oak Ridge is a city in Anderson County, Tennessee, Anderson and Roane County, Tennessee, Roane counties in the East Tennessee, eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about west of downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, Knoxville. Oak Ridge's po ...
, erected a four-ton peace bell – a replica of one of the Hiroshima bells – in the city centre as part of its fiftieth-anniversary celebrations, and to strengthen ties with Japan. The Oak Ridge Friendship Bell is decorated with dates relating to Oak Ridge's connection to Japan (the uranium
Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...
used in the Hiroshima atomic bomb was produced in Oak Ridge). In 1998, a local citizen sued the city over the bell, claiming that it was a Buddhist symbol and violated local laws and the US Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally including seven articles, the Constitut ...
. The case was ruled in favour of the City of Oak Ridge.
See also
* , a type of bell that was developed during the Yayoi period
The Yayoi period (弥生時代, ''Yayoi jidai'') (c. 300 BC – 300 AD) is one of the major historical periods of the Japanese archipelago. It is generally defined as the era between the beginning of food production in Japan and the emergence o ...
* , another suspended bell used in Buddhism
* , bell used in Shinto shrine
A Stuart D. B. Picken, 1994. p. xxiii is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more kami, , the deities of the Shinto religion.
The Also called the . is where a shrine's patron is or are enshrined.Iwanami Japanese dic ...
s
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonsho
Bells (percussion)
Japanese Buddhist architecture
Articles containing video clips
Japanese metalwork
Buddhist ritual implements
Bronze objects