Shinbashira

What shinbashira means

The shinbashira is the great post running vertically through the centre of a timber pagoda such as a three- or five-storied pagoda. It supports the finial spire at the summit and bears its weight. The roofs and frames of each storey are built up around it, and the post itself is often not rigidly tied to the floors and beams of the storeys.

In ancient pagodas the post stood on a foundation stone below ground and ran in one line from the ground to the top. From the medieval period it became usual to stop the post above the ceiling of the first storey without bringing it down into the interior. Ehime Prefecture describes a post stopped at the first-storey ceiling as the typical pagoda form from the medieval period on. The first-storey interior is left freer, with room for a Buddhist image at the centre.

Despite the similar name, it is a different thing from the Shin-no-mihashira, the sacred post beneath the floor of a Shinto sanctuary.

Reading the records

Records and commentaries note the section of the post and where it stops. The five-storied pagoda of Saishoin in Hirosaki, Aomori, completed in 1667, has a square-section shinbashira stopped in the space above the first-storey ceiling, with a Dainichi Nyorai image in the first storey. The three-storied pagoda of Hofukuji in Soja, Okayama, built in 1376, likewise stops its post at the first-storey ceiling.

The shinbashira is hidden inside the pagoda. Where the first storey is open on special occasions, check whether a post stands at the centre or stops at the ceiling.