Five-Ringed Tower

A Dated Stone, Cut in 1181

Carved into the lowest block of this andesite monument is a precise date: the eleventh month of Jishō 5, corresponding to the year 1181 in the Western calendar. That single inscription places the stupa among the earliest stone gorintō (five-element pagodas) in Japan whose age can be verified directly from the stone itself. It was raised, as the same inscription tells us, by a monk named Ben'a, for the soul of a regional lord.

The monument now stands inside a modest wooden shelter along the approach to Ganpōji, a small temple in Tamakawa Village, Fukushima Prefecture. Around 180 centimeters survive of its original height. The pointed jewel that once crowned the structure has been lost, and what remains are four stacked stones — a cube at the base, a sphere, a pyramidal block, and a hemispherical disc — corresponding to the Buddhist elements of earth, water, fire, and wind. The fifth element, void, vanished with the missing apex.

For visitors familiar only with the elegant gorintō of Kamakura or Nara, this northern memorial offers a quieter, plainer face. No Sanskrit seed-syllables decorate the rings. No lotus pedestal cradles the base. The surfaces are weathered down to the bare geometry of the form, which is precisely why scholars treasure it.

The Man It Was Built For

The lord commemorated here was Minamoto no Motomitsu, second-generation head of the Mutsu Ishikawa clan. The family had taken its name from this very district. His father, Minamoto no Aritomitsu, had marched north with Minamoto no Yoriyoshi during the Former Nine Years' War (1051–1063), the long campaign that broke the power of the Abe in Tōhoku. When the dust settled, the court rewarded Aritomitsu with the rank of Aki-no-kami and granted him sixty-odd villages centered on the Ishikawa district. He made his seat at Izumigō (the place name still attached to the local railway station) and built Mitsuyoshi Castle there.

Motomitsu inherited that authority. His maternal line was equally consequential: his mother is recorded as a daughter of Fujiwara no Kiyohira, founder of the great Northern Fujiwara dynasty centered at Hiraizumi. The bond connected the Ishikawa frontier directly to the most sophisticated cultural center north of Kyoto, where Konjikidō and the gold-laquer halls of Chūson-ji had risen only a few decades earlier. Hiraizumi's own oldest dated stone gorintō, at Chūson-ji's Shakuson-in, predates this one by only twelve years.

Read in that light, the Iwahōji stupa is not an isolated provincial monument but a stone bookmark in the cultural reach of the Northern Fujiwara — one of the very few tangible witnesses to a marriage that linked Hiraizumi's golden world to the rolling hills of the Abukuma plateau.

Why It Carries National Importance

The Agency for Cultural Affairs designated the stupa an Important Cultural Property on 4 July 1938. The reasons turn on three points.

First, the date. In Japan's long history of stone funerary art, monuments with verifiable twelfth-century inscriptions can be counted on one hand. Among full-scale standing stone gorintō bearing a clear year, only the Shakuson-in tower at Chūson-ji (1169) and the Nakao Stupa at Usuki in Ōita (1170) precede this one. Tamakawa Village's count of "the third oldest in Japan" reflects this lineage.

Second, the form. The discipline of carving a true five-element pagoda in stone was still being worked out in the late Heian period. Earlier examples shade into related shapes — hōtō, miniature shrines held by Buddhist statues, painted depictions on sutra boxes. This monument is the genuine article: a freestanding, full-sized, deliberately funerary stone gorintō made decades before the Kamakura craftsmen would standardize the form.

Third, the historical fingerprint. The patron's name (Ben'a), the year, and the commemorated lord all appear in the carved text. Such a complete dedication, in stone, from this period, is exceedingly rare.

What to Notice in Front of the Stone

Begin at the base. The earth-wheel, which is the cube, is where the inscription lives. The dated text runs down the right side; the patron's Buddhist name appears on the left. Both have suffered eight centuries of weathering, but the strokes are still legible to careful eyes, and reproductions are usually posted near the shelter.

Move upward. The sphere of the water-wheel is unusually large for its period, with a perceptible flattening on top where the next stone rests. The fire-wheel above takes the form of a low pyramid; unlike the sharply pitched fire-wheels of later Kamakura work, its slopes are gentle, almost reluctant to rise. This is the late-Heian profile, before craftsmen had settled on the bolder geometry.

The wind-wheel (the hemisphere) sits next, and there the climb ends. The missing void-wheel would have been a small jewel-shaped finial. Without it, the stupa reads less as an upward gesture and more as a low, grounded presence, which has a particular dignity in its forest setting.

Step back, and consider what is not here. There are no Sanskrit characters (bonji) carved into the faces. Later medieval stupas almost always bear these, one per ring. The plain surfaces tell us we are looking at something older than the standard medieval template — something close to the origin point of the form in Japan.

Reaching the Site, and What Lies Nearby

The nearest railway station is Izumigō, on the JR Suigun Line. From there it is a walk of about fifteen minutes along a country road through low hills and rice fields. Drivers can reach Tamakawa Village easily from the Tōhoku Expressway via Sukagawa or Shirakawa interchanges. Fukushima Airport, surprisingly, lies less than two kilometers away, making Tamakawa one of the more accessible heritage destinations in southern Fukushima.

The shelter housing the stupa is open to the air at the front, so the monument can be viewed at any reasonable hour. There is no admission charge. Visitors will find better lighting in the late morning, when sun reaches under the eaves.

For those willing to plan a half-day, Tamakawa offers more than the stupa. The roadside station Michi-no-Eki Tamakawa stocks local produce and serves as a useful first stop. Fukushima Airport Park, surrounding the runway, includes wide lawns and a small space-themed exhibit. South of the village, the Abukuma Cave (Abukuma-dō) outside Tamura City is one of the most dramatic limestone caves in Tōhoku and pairs well with a stop at the stupa. For travelers continuing north, Sukagawa City, birthplace of Ultraman creator Eiji Tsuburaya, sits within a comfortable drive.