Three-storied pagoda

What a three-storied pagoda is

A three-storied pagoda, sanjūnotō, is a Buddhist tower with three tiers of roofs, built to enshrine relics or images. With the five-storied pagoda it is one of the main types of Japanese timber pagoda. The plan is usually three bays square, with a central post and a finial spire at the top.

Typically a Buddhist image is enshrined on the first storey, and the upper storeys are left as unfinished structural frames without floors. Ehime Prefecture's commentary on the three-storied pagoda of Kouganji describes a first storey three bays square with four inner posts, and upper storeys left unfinished inside as is usual for pagodas.

The number of visible roofs is not always three. Where pent roofs are added to each storey or to the first storey, their roofs increase the count, so a three-storied pagoda may appear to have four or six roofs.

Reading the records and the pagoda

Records give the type by bays and storeys, as a three-bay, three-storied pagoda. The east pagoda of Yakushiji in Nara, thought to date from 730, is described as a three-storied pagoda with six roofs because each storey carries a mokoshi. The octagonal three-storied pagoda of Anrakuji in Ueda, Nagano, has four roofs because of a mokoshi on the first storey; it is the only surviving octagonal pagoda and has Zen-style three-step bracket sets arranged in Tsumegumi. The three-storied pagoda of Hofukuji in Soja, Okayama, is a three-bay pagoda of the early Muromachi period.

On site, do not simply count roofs; check whether each roof sits over a true storey with bracket sets or is a smaller mokoshi roof. Mokoshi roofs project less and usually have simpler brackets.