Five-Story Pagoda of Hokekyoji Temple

A Vermilion Pagoda from 1622 at Hokekyō-ji

A red-lacquered pagoda climbs roughly 31.6 meters above the grounds of Hokekyō-ji, a Nichiren temple in the Nakayama district of Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture. It was finished in 1622, early in the Edo period, and is the only five-storied pagoda of that age still standing in the prefecture.

The man behind it was Hon'ami Kōshitsu (1583–1625), tenth head of the Hon'ami family, a line of sword appraisers and artists whose most famous member was the calligrapher and craftsman Kōetsu. Kōshitsu raised the pagoda to mark the third memorial of his father Kōtoku and the fifth memorial of his mother Myōkō. The money came from Maeda Toshimitsu, lord of the wealthy Kaga domain, who is better known by his later name, Toshitsune.

Why It Was Designated

The pagoda became an Important Cultural Property on 24 May 1916. Part of its value is simple scarcity. Very few five-storied pagodas built before the Edo period survive anywhere in the Kantō region, and only about four remain in this older idiom. The one at Hokekyō-ji is among them; another stands at Ikegami Honmon-ji in Tokyo.

Its architecture follows the restrained wayō, or Japanese style, rather than the heavily ornamented Chinese-derived modes that grew fashionable later. Each of the five stories measures three bays square. The rafters reflect this conservatism: the first through fourth stories use the doubled parallel rafters (nijū shigedaruki) of medieval practice, and only the top story switches to fan-arranged rafters, a habit that points back to pre-Edo work. Decoration is sparse. Apart from the mino-zuka struts, the lattice, and the kōzama panels below the windows, there is almost no carving, and the entire exterior is finished in red lacquer.

What to Look For

Walk around the base and the four faces read alike: a paneled door (sankarado) at the center of each side, with latticed connecting windows on either hand. From the second story upward, a balustrade and a narrow gallery wrap each level, but the ground floor has none.

Only the lowest story works as a real room. Inside it, four gilded pillars surround the central mast, and a railed altar platform sits among them; painted patterns cover the brackets and the upper parts of the columns. Everything above the first floor is hollow. There are no true upper rooms, and the timber up there was left rough and unpainted, since it was never meant to be seen. The central pillar hangs from above rather than resting on the ground, a feature shared by a few later Edo pagodas.

One practical point: the interior is not normally open, so the pagoda is something you take in from the grounds. The vermilion against the surrounding greenery, and the way the five roofs shrink toward the bronze finial, reward a slow walk around the structure.

Getting There and Nearby

Hokekyō-ji is about a five-minute walk from Keisei Nakayama Station, or roughly ten minutes from JR Shimōsa-Nakayama Station on the Sōbu Line. A stone-paved approach runs up from the black gate toward the precinct, lined with Somei-yoshino cherry trees that draw crowds in early April.

The temple is one of the head temples of Nichiren Buddhism, founded in 1260, and the grounds hold much more than the pagoda. The Hokke-dō, a hall from the late Muromachi period, ranks among the oldest surviving Nichiren-sect buildings. The Soshi-dō, with its unusual twin-gabled (hiyoku irimoya) roof, and the four-legged gate are Important Cultural Properties as well. The temple also keeps two of Nichiren's own writings, the Risshō Ankoku-ron and the Kanjin Honzon-shō, both National Treasures, though these are not on public display.

The Kishimojin hall here counts among Edo's three great Kishimojin shrines. From November to February the temple hosts the aragyō, a hundred-day regimen of cold-water ascetic training. Antique markets accompany the spring Senbue service and the autumn Oeshiki.