Hikone Butsudan

Grand but never cramped

Hikone altars are large and grand, yet even small ones never feel cramped. They are designed for daily use, with document boxes and stands built in to hold altar tools and accessories. Seven specialist crafts work on each one, and a single altar can take about a year. It is made in Hikone and Maibara in Shiga.

Seven processes

• Kiji: the body, ceiling and pillars in plain hinoki or cedar; kuden: the roof of the inner shrine; carving: transoms and ornaments.
• Lacquer: a ground of tonoko clay powder, then middle and top coats of refined natural urushi, polished and dried each time and finished with roiro polishing.
• Gold leaf is laid inside the altar.
• Fittings of brass or copper are chased and gold-plated.
• Maki-e of flowers, birds and family crests in gold and silver powder and shell adds splendour.

From armour to altars

In the mid-Edo period the Hikone domain urged its skilled armourers, lacquerers and craftsmen to stop making arms and make Buddhist altars instead. Altar making began as a small cottage industry, and with the spread of Buddhism and the domain's protection it grew into a production area.