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The Buddhist temples and monasteries, found in every Buddhist
country, form another distinctive example of the Buddhist
architecture. The Buddhist temples in India are superb examples
of the temple architecture with the most prominent one at
Bodh Gaya (Mahabodhi temple), the place of the Buddha's enlightenment.
Other major Buddhist temples in India, which are fine examples
of the golden Indian architecture, are at Sanchi(450 CE),
Taxila and Sarnath. Similarly, other temples such as those
at Cambodia (the famous Angkor Wat temple), Sri Lanka, Thailand,
China and Japan presents an excellent example of the Buddhist
architecture. Japan boasts of being the greatest surviving
concentration of the Buddhist art and architecture in its
80,000 temples, most of which retain original features from
as early as the Nara period(710 CE - 794 CE).
Secondly, monasteries, a dwelling place for community of
monks, presents fine example of the Buddhist architecture
and charismatic Buddhist spirituality. In India, the ruins
of the Nalanda monastic university and the ancient monasteries
at Sarnath, whose ruins are still present along with some
of the latest ones, still depicts the golden past of Buddhism
and developed architectural style in India. The Tibetan, Japanese
and Chinese monasteries along with others presents a very
distinctive style of architecture with splendid use of colour
and ornamentation. The use of images, paintings, thangkas
and mandalas in these monasteries produces rich iconography
not only architecturally, but artistically as well.
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