There are four major Perfect Enlightenment temples established as national religious spaces.

Perfect Enlightenment, also known as the state of complete enlightenment. From the 11th to the 15th century, the ideology and belief in Perfect Enlightenment nourished numerous artistic and literary canons in East Asia. In the early Northern Song Dynasty, the Zen master Xuedou infused the concept of Perfect Enlightenment into the imagery of a bright moon, using his hundred poems about the moon to dissolve the solitude of wandering monks and creating new literary imagery and functions. In the mid-Northern Song Dynasty, Yang Jie was the first to incorporate the bright moon into his “Ode to Herding Bulls,” depicting the state of Perfect Enlightenment through painting. In the 10th year of the Chunxi era in the Southern Song Dynasty (1083), Emperor Xiaozong annotated the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment from a pure Zen perspective, named the Jing Mountain Xingsheng Wanshou Temple, and built the Perfect Enlightenment Pavilion, establishing belief in Perfect Enlightenment as a state religion. Subsequently, the four major Perfect Enlightenment grotto temples emerged one after another in the Tongchuan Prefecture. Among them, the Sacred Site of Perfect Enlightenment at the Dazu Mount Baoding has two reliefs of the bright moon, and the inscription “Storehouse of Brilliance.” In the mid-Kamakura period, the Regent Hojo Tokimune built the Perfect Enlightenment Zen Temple and the Brilliance Hall in Kamakura, Japan. In the early Joseon Dynasty, King Sejo built the Perfect Enlightenment Zen Temple, the Brilliance Hall, and the Perfect Enlightenment Pagoda in Hanseong. In the early period of the Second Shō Dynasty of the Ryukyu Kingdom, King Shō Shin built the Perfect Enlightenment Zen Temple and the Perfect Enlightenment Pond in Shuri. Similar to the mindset of Emperor Xiaozong, whenever the country is in decline and in need of rebuilding its national faith, East Asian monarchies often choose the belief of Perfect Enlightenment. As a result, there are four major Perfect Enlightenment temples established as national religious spaces. These artistic and literary paradigms practice and convey the belief of Perfect Enlightenment through imagination, visual representation, and spatial experiences. This project aims to conduct a comprehensive study of the phenomenon group mentioned above for the first time using the approach of “History of East Asian Artistic and Literary Thought Originating from Religion.”