World Heritage Site as the place for education: the case of the Gango-ji Temple in Japan

The purpose of this paper is to investigate educational functions of the World Heritage Site by examining the case of cultural tourism in a Japanese Buddhist temple.

Japan accepted the World Heritage Convention in 1992. “Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara” were decided to be listed on the World Cultural Heritage in 1998. It was composed of buildings, monuments and related cultural landscape, including five Buddhist temples and one Shinto shrine. Among them, the Gango-ji, focused in this paper, is one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Japan.

It has been keeping many cultural properties related to the folk religious practice and providing many activities for the local community. The material culture of folk-belief is now preserved in a building in the temple yard. And there is an exhibition room. The main hall and the exhibition room are the important facilities for social education, where the visitors can watch and touch the real materials. According to the staffs of the temple, the tourists had better stay in the main hall after 1 h study at the exhibition room.

Heritage is a process of the contemporary people engaging in the usage of past as resources. The buildings as the tangible heritage used by the present community are combined with the actions as the intangible heritage of the people who preserve the heritage. The temporal tourists are also permitted to enjoy the process as participants. They can learn many things through their experiences at the heritage site.