A Stone Slab Carved in 1276
The inscription cut into this slab records a single date: the sixth day of the third month of Kenji 2, a year that corresponds to 1276. That fixes its making firmly in the Kamakura period, and it has stood ever since in the precinct of Nyoho-ji, a Shingon temple about fifteen minutes on foot from Koriyama Station in central Fukushima. The object is an itaishi toba, a stone slab stupa, and it belongs to a wider family of flat stone memorials called itabi that spread across medieval Japan.
An itabi is, in plain terms, a thin upright slab of stone raised to pray for the dead or to accumulate religious merit for the living. Most are incised with Sanskrit seed-syllables, called bonji, each one standing in for a particular buddha or bodhisattva. The buddha invoked here is Amida, the Buddha of the Western Paradise, whose vow to receive the faithful into his Pure Land lay at the center of medieval Japanese devotion. The Nyoho-ji slab is described as a mandara itabi, a mandala-form stele, because its carved surface lays out an ordered world of enlightenment gathered around that single figure.
What survives is unusually whole. Many medieval slabs reach us snapped, buried, or worn past reading, yet this one keeps its date legible and its composition intact, which is part of why it carries the weight it does.
Why It Was Designated
The slab was recognized by the national government on 6 May 1936, first under the old National Treasures Preservation Law and now classed as an Important Cultural Property in the archaeological materials category. The companion piece beside it, a stone kasa-toba (a slab capped with a stone roof) dated 1208, was protected on the same day.
The case for the slab rests on three things at once. It is dated, and a securely dated medieval monument is a fixed point that scholars can measure undated ones against. It is early: works of this kind from the 1270s are rare in the north. And it is the best-preserved example of its type known in the Tohoku region, which makes it a reference object for the whole northeastern tradition of stone memorials.
There is a historical argument folded into the stone as well. Pure Land devotion of the kind expressed here traveled north through Hiraizumi, the Fujiwara capital in present-day Iwate whose temples drew on the Tendai school's teaching of rebirth in Amida's paradise. The presence of a refined Amida-centered slab this far south, at Koriyama, marks how far that culture had reached by the late thirteenth century.
What to Look For
Stand close and the first thing to read is the carving itself. Centuries of frost and rain have softened the lines, but the seed-syllables and the framing of the composition can still be traced by eye, and the cut date rewards a slow look. The two protected stones repay comparison. The 1208 kasa-toba carries an Amida descent scene, the moment the buddha comes to greet a dying believer, together with a four-line votive text, and it sits at the hinge where memorial markers shifted from perishable wood to lasting stone. The 1276 slab, sixty-eight years younger, shows how the same impulse had matured into a settled, mandala-like form.
The precinct holds more than the two famous stones. There is a bronze bell, recast in 1806, known locally as the "wartless bell" because Sanskrit characters were cast where the usual rows of round bosses would sit; it is recognized as an Important Art Object. Elsewhere among the old markers is a second slab stupa, this one designated only at the city level, that local people once scraped at in the belief that swallowing the stone dust would cure whooping cough. Its pitted surface is its own kind of record, an account of folk faith rather than formal religion.
None of this asks for hurry. The interest lies in the detail: the difference between a carved deity and a carved syllable, the way a date survives on one stone and a healing superstition is written into the wear of another.
Around the Temple
Nyoho-ji is a working neighborhood temple in Domae-cho, and the slab stupas stand in the open precinct rather than behind glass, so a visit is usually a matter of walking in during daylight hours; it is worth confirming access with the temple before a special trip, since open-air monuments are sometimes protected or screened. The temple is the second station on the Sendo Thirty-Three Kannon pilgrimage, with the horse-headed Bato Kannon as its image.
The year here turns on two events. From the evening of 6 January into 7 January, the temple holds the Nanukado-mairi, a night-long festival for Bato Kannon; the saying is that prayers are answered as quickly as a horse runs, and the festival draws crowds said to reach a hundred thousand, with roughly a hundred stalls selling good-luck charms, daruma dolls, and seasonal trinkets. On 3 February the Setsubun rite includes a reading of the vast Daihannya sutra, its accordion-folded volumes fanned open and chanted through, followed by the scattering of beans and oranges for the coming year's fortune.
Reaching the temple is straightforward: a fifteen to twenty minute walk from the west exit of Koriyama Station, or about thirty minutes by car from the Koriyama interchange on the Tohoku Expressway. Koriyama is a major hub on the Tohoku Shinkansen, which makes the slab an easy stop on a wider trip through Fukushima.
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- Find tours, activities & transport passes near Itaishi Toba
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Q&A
- What exactly is an itaishi toba?
- It is a stone slab stupa, one form of the flat stone memorial known as an itabi. Such slabs were raised in medieval Japan to mourn the dead or earn religious merit, and most are carved with Sanskrit seed-syllables representing a buddha, here Amida.
- How do we know it dates to 1276?
- The slab is inscribed with a date, the sixth day of the third month of Kenji 2, which converts to 1276. A securely dated monument like this is valuable precisely because undated examples can be compared against it.
- Why is this particular slab important?
- It is regarded as the best-preserved slab stupa of its kind in the Tohoku region, and its refined Amida-centered design reflects how Pure Land devotion linked to Hiraizumi had spread south to Koriyama by the late Kamakura period.
- Can I see it, and is there anything else at the temple?
- The slab and a companion stone kasa-toba of 1208, also an Important Cultural Property, stand in the open precinct of Nyoho-ji. The temple also keeps a bronze "wartless bell" recognized as an Important Art Object. Confirm viewing details with the temple in advance.
- When is the temple at its liveliest?
- During the Nanukado-mairi festival, held overnight from 6 to 7 January for Bato Kannon, when about a hundred stalls and very large crowds fill the grounds. The Setsubun rite on 3 February is another busy day.
Basic Information
| Name | Itaishi Toba (stone slab stupa), held at Nyoho-ji |
|---|---|
| Location | Nyoho-ji, Domae-cho, Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture |
| Designation | Important Cultural Property (archaeological materials) |
| Designated | 6 May 1936 (originally under the former National Treasures Preservation Law) |
| Count | 1 unit |
| Date of object | Kamakura period, dated Kenji 2 (1276) |
| Temple | Kogakuzan Nyoho-ji, Shingon-shu Buzan branch; principal image Dainichi Nyorai |
| Access | About 15 to 20 minutes on foot from the west exit of Koriyama Station; roughly 30 minutes by car from the Koriyama interchange on the Tohoku Expressway |
| Viewing | Stands in the temple precinct; confirm access with the temple before visiting |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database (entry for the Itaishi Toba)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/201/9629
- Nyoho-ji, Koriyama City official tourism site
- https://www.kanko-koriyama.gr.jp/tourism/detail2-3-70.html
- Fukushima Prefecture, Cultural Properties pages
- https://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/site/edu/bunkazai01.html
- Nyoho-ji, Fukushima travel guide (TIF)
- https://www.tif.ne.jp/jp/spot.html?spot=6704
- Nyoho-ji, Japanese-language reference overview
- https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/如宝寺
Last verified: 2026.06.14