National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties
of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

In order to enhance the religious atmosphere, special sound-making instruments of various kinds are used in Buddhist rituals and practices held in and outside temple halls. A dora (bronze gong) is one type of those instruments (bonnon-gu). It is disc-shaped, with its edge bent on a right angle. In the creation process, it is beaten with a hammer after the casting to increase the echo, which is a characteristic of this type. Dora were used also at tea ceremonies since the Muromachi period, but few pieces for Buddhist use have survived. This piece does not have the production-year on it, but by comparing it with some other ones known to have it, such as one in Kudaraji temple in Shiga prefecture, which has the year Kenchō 8 (1256) inscribed on it and another in Tōenbō in Ehime prefecture, on which the era Shōkei (1332-1333) is inscribed, it is thought to have been made at the end of the Kamakura period.