Short answers, pulled from the story.
Shichido garan is a Japanese Buddhist term referring to the seven halls composing the ideal Buddhist temple compound. The term combines shichi (seven), do (halls), and garan (an ancient word for a Buddhist gathering place). In practice, it often simply means a large temple complex with many buildings.
A 13th-century text lists the seven halls as the hon-do (main hall), to (pagoda), ko-do (lecture hall), shoro (belfry), jiki-do (refectory), sobo (monks' living quarters), and kyozo (scriptures repository). Zen sects of the 15th century used a different set of seven, which included a toilet and a bath house.
Garan is an abbreviation of an expression that transliterates a Sanskrit term. It originally described a park where Japanese monks gathered with their teacher, and only later came to mean a Buddhist temple complex. The word appears in the Nihon Shoki in a record dated 552.
The pagoda began as the centerpiece of the garan, honored for the relics it contained, but was gradually displaced by the kondo (golden hall), which housed images believed to hold magical power. The shift is documented across four temples in chronological order: Asuka-dera, Shitennoji, Horyuji, and Yakushiji. Zen sects, which arrived in Japan later, typically do not build pagodas at all.
King Seong of Baekje sent a mission to Japan in 577, as recorded in the Nihon Shoki, that included a temple architect and a Buddhist image maker. Excavations at Jeongnimsa in Buyeo, the Baekje capital from 538 to 663, revealed a north-to-south axial layout that was closely followed at Shitennoji in Osaka.
Horyuji, a temple of the Shotoku sect in Ikaruga, Nara Prefecture, contains a chomon (gate), kairo (roofed encircling passage), kondo (main hall), pagoda, kodo (lecture hall), kyozo (scriptures repository), and shoro (belfry).