On the last night of the year in Japan, a sound rises from Buddhist temples across the country. It begins a few minutes before midnight and continues past the hour — one hundred and eight strikes, low and heavy, each one dying slowly into the cold air before the next begins. The sound is unmistakable once you have heard it: not a clang but a bloom, bronze expanding outward in concentric rings of vibration that seem to come from the air itself rather than from any object.
The bell is called a bonshō (梵鐘), the “sacred bell.” The wooden structure that houses it is the shōrō (鐘楼), the bell tower. Together, these two elements form one of the most resonant architectural pairings in Japanese religious space. The bell is sound given permanent form. The tower is architecture designed to release that sound into the world.
Visitors to Japanese temples often photograph the bell tower almost without thinking. But the shōrō repays closer attention. Its placement within the temple precinct, its open sides, its massive timber frame, the striker hanging in shadow — all of these are deliberate, all calculated for one purpose: to make the bell speak as clearly as possible to as large a space as possible.
Origins: From China to Japan
The word bonshō carries the Sanskrit root brahman in its first character (梵), meaning “pure” or “sacred.” In Buddhist usage, this prefix marks an object as belonging to the realm of the Buddha.
The large ritual bell developed not in India but in China, where bronze bells (zhōng) were integral to ceremonial music from the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE) onward. When Buddhism reached China in the first century CE, it absorbed this bell culture: the monastery bell became a fixture of monastic life, marking the hours of prayer, meals, and meditation.
Buddhism arrived in Japan in the mid-sixth century CE via Korean monks. The bonshō came with this transmission. The oldest surviving Japanese bells, dating to the late seventh and early eighth centuries, show clear Korean influence in their elongated proportions — what scholars call the “Asuka style.” Over the Nara period (710–794 CE), a specifically Japanese form evolved: broader, more robustly proportioned, with richer surface decoration, and above all with the distinctive tonal properties that make Japanese bonshō unique among the world’s bells.
The peak of early Japanese bell-founding came with the commission at Tōdai-ji in Nara. The bell cast around 752 CE — now known affectionately as Nara no Okane or “Nara Taro” — stands nearly four meters tall and weighs approximately 26 metric tons. It remains the largest pre-modern bonshō in Japan and one of the oldest still operational.
Anatomy of a Bonshō
Every element of the bonshō’s form has a name, a meaning, and a function — acoustic, symbolic, or both.
Ryūzu (竜頭): The crown of the bell takes the form of two intertwined dragons facing each other, their bodies forming the suspension loop. The dragon (ryū) is a rain-bringing, water-commanding deity in East Asian tradition; its presence at the top of the bell carries an implicit protection against fire, the greatest enemy of wooden temple buildings.
Chi (乳): Running around the upper body of the bell is a band of small hemispherical protrusions — typically arranged in grids of four rows and four columns. These “nipple bosses” are found on Japanese bonshō but not on Chinese or Korean bells, making them one of the distinctive visual markers of the Japanese form. They are not purely decorative: acoustic research suggests they influence the bell’s harmonic structure, contributing to its long and complex resonance.
Tsukiza (撞座): The slightly raised, often lotus-decorated pad on the side of the bell where the striker (shūmoku) makes contact. Most bonshō have two tsukiza on opposite sides of the bell; each produces a fractionally different pitch, contributing to the instrument’s rich tonal texture.
Mei (銘): Inscribed around the lower body, the bell’s text records the date of casting, the temple or patron who commissioned it, the craftsmen responsible, and a Buddhist votive phrase. These inscriptions are primary historical documents — and occasionally, as in the case of the Hōkō-ji bell, catalysts for historical events. That bell’s 1614 inscription was interpreted (or misinterpreted) by Tokugawa Ieyasu’s advisors as a hidden curse against the Tokugawa family, providing the pretext for the Osaka Campaign that destroyed the Toyotomi clan.
How the Bonshō Makes Its Sound
The bonshō’s acoustic properties are exceptional. A large bell, properly struck, will sustain an audible tone for sixty seconds or more — not fading smoothly but modulating, pulsing, seeming almost to breathe.
Japanese temple bells are cast from bronze: approximately 78–82% copper and 18–22% tin. This tin-rich alloy is harder and more resonant than many Western bell alloys, contributing to the extraordinary sustain that characterizes Japanese bonshō.
The most distinctive acoustic feature is the beat (unari, うなり) — a periodic fluctuation in loudness that causes the sound to swell and recede in a slow, breathing rhythm. This is produced by two vibrational modes with frequencies extremely close but not identical. As they go in and out of phase, they alternately reinforce and cancel, producing the pulse.
Master founders aim for a beat of roughly 1–3 cycles per second, slow enough to give the sound a meditative quality. This phenomenon, now understood through wave physics, was known to Japanese craftsmen empirically for centuries. The ability to consistently produce it in large castings distinguishes the great historic bonshō from ordinary bells — and is part of why collecting goshuin at a temple with a famous bell is a complete sensory experience rather than a purely visual one.
The Shōrō: Architecture Designed for Sound
The shōrō is the wooden tower that houses and projects the bonshō. In the best examples, its design is as carefully considered as the bell itself.
Open Sides: The Fundamental Choice
The most acoustically important feature of a traditional shōrō is what it lacks: walls. Japanese bell towers are typically fukihanachi (吹き放ち) in structure — open on all four sides, the bell suspended within a framework of columns and roof alone. This openness allows sound to radiate outward in all directions, maximizing the range over which the bell can be heard.
An enclosed bell tower exists in Japan but is less common. Where enclosure is used, it protects against weather or theft; the acoustic cost is accepted. Elaborate latticed screens (sukashi kabe) attempt to combine protection with acoustic openness.
Placement Within the Temple
In the ideal shichidō garan (seven-hall monastery) configuration, the bell tower and the sutra repository are positioned symmetrically on either side of the inner gate — balancing sound against scripture. In practice, temples place the shōrō at the highest available point, maximizing the bell’s range. At Tōdai-ji, the bell tower sits on a raised stone platform allowing the Nara no Okane to carry across the Nara basin.
Structure
The shōrō must support a bell weighing several metric tons and absorb its sustained cyclical vibrations without loosening its joints. Japanese temple carpenters developed specific solutions: oversized tie beams, elaborate bracket systems, and deeply embedded corner posts. The roof follows standard temple practice — broad eaves to shed rain, with the characteristic upward curve at the corners. Because the shōrō is open on all sides, the eaves project further than on an enclosed building.
The striker (shūmoku) hangs from a separate beam in front of the bell — a log of hard wood, sometimes rope-wrapped at the striking end, suspended to swing horizontally. At Chion-in, the shūmoku is so massive that seventeen monks are required: sixteen pulling ropes attached at intervals along the log, one guiding the tip.
108 Strikes: Defilements and New Year’s Eve
The custom known as joya no kane (除夜の鐘) — the “New Year’s Eve bell” — is the moment when the bonshō enters most deeply into Japanese popular culture. On the night of December 31, temples across Japan strike their bells 108 times, typically starting before midnight and ending after.
Why 108?
One hundred and eight is the number of bonnō (煩悩) — the mental afflictions or “defilements” that cause suffering in Buddhist psychology. By striking the bell 108 times, the temple performs a ritual dispelling: each stroke breaks one affliction, clearing the mind as the old year ends.
The derivation of 108 traces to Buddhist phenomenology. The six sense faculties (rokkon: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind) each give rise to afflictions. These multiply across three time periods (past, present, future), then by three affective tones (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral), then by two qualities (pure and impure): 6 × 3 × 3 × 2 = 108.
The number appears throughout Buddhist practice beyond the New Year’s bell: standard rosaries (juzu) have 108 beads, certain sutra recitations are performed 108 times, and ritual purification ceremonies may involve 108 prostrations.
The Ceremony
The standard practice is to strike the bell 107 times before midnight and once after — the final clearing falls in the new year, symbolizing that the new year begins already purified.
Many temples allow lay visitors to strike the bell as part of the ceremony. Participants line up in the cold for the chance to swing the shūmoku. This participatory dimension — unusual in Japanese temple practice, which rarely invites direct lay involvement in ritual actions — has made the joya no kane one of the most widely attended Buddhist events in Japan.
Famous Bells and Bell Towers
Chion-in, Kyoto: The Largest Bell in Japan
The bonshō at Chion-in, headquarters of the Jōdo school in Kyoto, is the largest operational temple bell in Japan. Cast in 1636, it stands 3.3 meters tall, measures 2.8 meters in diameter, and weighs approximately 70 metric tons. The seventeen-monk striking procedure makes the NHK’s annual New Year’s Eve broadcast of the ceremony one of Japan’s most iconic images of the year’s turning.
Tōdai-ji, Nara: Nara no Okane
The bonshō of Tōdai-ji — Nara no Okane, “Nara Taro” — is a National Treasure cast around 752 CE. At 3.9 meters tall and approximately 26 metric tons, it was among the largest bells in the world at its casting. Its bell tower, also a National Treasure and a rare surviving example of the daibutsuyō architectural style introduced from Song China, sits on a raised platform in the precinct’s northeastern corner.
Miidera, Shiga: The Bell of Lake Biwa
Miidera (Onjō-ji) on the western shore of Lake Biwa is renowned for a bell said to produce Japan’s most beautiful sound. “The evening bell of Mii” was designated one of the “Eight Views of Ōmi,” the historic landscape enumeration for Shiga Prefecture — meaning that the bell’s sound was considered a landscape feature in its own right, as worthy of aesthetic contemplation as a mountain or lake.
Myōshin-ji, Kyoto: The Oldest Surviving Bell
The bell at Myōshin-ji, cast in 698 CE, is the oldest extant Japanese bonshō. Its elongated Asuka-style form reflects the early period when Japanese craftsmen were working closely within Korean models. Now stored in controlled conditions, it represents the starting point of an unbroken tradition stretching 1,300 years.
Bells and War
No history of the Japanese bonshō is complete without acknowledging the Pacific War. Between 1941 and 1945, the Japanese government requisitioned metal objects — including temple bells — for military production. Estimates suggest 70–80% of Japan’s bonshō were melted down. The bells ringing today in most temples are postwar castings, made in the 1950s and 1960s. Many carry inscriptions expressing the hope for peace. In ringing them, temples re-enact both continuity and recovery — metal that was used for violence transformed once more into an instrument of the vow against harm.
Visiting Shōrō and the Connection to Goshuin
For visitors who collect goshuin at Buddhist temples, the bell tower is part of the spatial experience that makes each temple visit complete.
Listen at the right time. Most temples strike the bonshō at dawn, noon, and dusk as part of the monks’ daily schedule. If you are in the precinct during one of these timings, pause and listen through the full decay — sixty seconds or more for a large bell. The sound is felt in the chest as much as heard by the ear.
Attend joya no kane. For the most immersive bell experience, arrive at a major temple before 11:30 PM on December 31. Bring warm clothing. Chion-in, Tōdai-ji, and Nanzen-ji draw large crowds; smaller temples in the same cities offer a more intimate experience. The option to strike the bell yourself — rare in normal temple visits — makes this ceremony unlike any other in the Buddhist calendar.
The shōrō and your goshuin. There is typically no goshuin specifically for the bell tower. But the bell tower is part of what makes a temple’s atmosphere worth returning to: the quality of its grounds, the deliberateness of its spatial design, the presence of that hanging bronze. The best goshuin connect you to the whole of a temple’s meaning — the bell’s voice is part of that whole.
Image Credits
Images in this article are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.
- Header image: Gantoku-ji Bell Tower, Nagahama, Shiga / Shinji Enoki, CC0 1.0
