Chofukuji Temple Pagoda

A Stone Pagoda With a Date Carved Into It

Chofukuji Hoto (長福寺宝塔, Chōfuku-ji Hōtō) is a stone pagoda at Chofukuji temple in Umezu Nakamura-cho, Ukyo Ward, Kyoto, erected in 1334 and designated an Important Cultural Property on 9 February 1960. It carries an inscription giving the eighth day of the eleventh month of the first year of Kenmu, which is the reason it matters.

Most surviving medieval stone monuments in Japan are dated by comparison: a specialist looks at the taper of the body, the pitch of the roof stone, the profile of the finial, and places the object within a range of decades. Inscribed dates cut into the stone at the time of making are far less common, and each one becomes an anchor against which undated examples can be measured. This is why a modest granite pagoda in a suburban temple garden appears on the national list alongside far grander things.

The hōtō is a specific form, distinct from the multi-storey pagodas visitors usually photograph. It has a single cylindrical body set on a square base, a short necked section above, a heavy square or pyramidal roof stone, and a finial. The type derives from Buddhist reliquary symbolism and was used in Japan largely for memorial and funerary purposes. This one is granite and stands roughly 2.1 metres according to local documentation; the national register does not record dimensions.

1334, and the Question of Whose Monument It Is

The year is worth pausing on. Kenmu 1 falls in the brief interval after Emperor Go-Daigo overthrew the Kamakura shogunate and before the country split into rival courts. The Agency for Cultural Affairs classifies the pagoda as early Muromachi, which reflects the administrative period scheme rather than the political reality of the moment it was cut. A stonemason working in the eleventh month of that year was working in a capital that had just changed hands and was about to change again.

Local tradition identifies the pagoda as the grave marker of Gatsurin Dōkō, the priest who transformed Chofukuji. There is a difficulty with this. Gatsurin entered the temple in 1339 and died in 1351, both after the inscribed date of 1334. The two facts cannot both describe an original funerary function, so the identification should be treated as a tradition attached to the monument at some later point rather than as its documented purpose. Whichever reading one prefers, the carved date stands independently.

The temple around it has a long history. Chofukuji belongs to the Nanzenji branch of Rinzai Zen, takes the mountain name Daibaizan, and enshrines Amida Nyorai. Its founding legend credits a nun named Shinri, of the Umezu family who developed this district, with building the halls in 1169, when the temple followed Tendai practice. Gatsurin's arrival in 1339 brought it into the Zen school. It became an imperial prayer temple in 1350, burned in the Ōnin War, and was restored through the patronage of Yamana Sōzen.

The temple's other treasures indicate how significant it once was. Two National Treasures, a portrait of Emperor Hanazono by Gōshin and a calligraphic work by Gurin Seimu, are held on deposit at the Kyoto National Museum, along with a considerable body of Important Cultural Property documents. The Buddha hall of 1695 and the abbot's hall of 1668 are designated by the city of Kyoto.

Practical Notes Before You Go

Set expectations carefully. Chofukuji is not open for general visiting. Guides describing the temple list it as closed to the public, and the pagoda stands in the south garden of the abbot's hall rather than in an accessible forecourt. This is a working parish temple with a cemetery, not a sightseeing destination, and arriving without arrangement is unlikely to result in seeing the monument.

Anyone with a scholarly reason to view it should approach the temple in advance and in writing. Photography inside a closed precinct is a matter for the temple to decide, so no assumption should be made either way.

For the record, the location is straightforward: Umezu Nakamura-cho lies south of Shijo-dori in the western part of the city. City buses stop at Chofukuji-michi, from which it is a walk of a few minutes, and the Hankyu Arashiyama Line station at Matsuo Taisha is about a fifteen to twenty minute walk away. Route 28 from Kyoto Station and route 3 from Shijo Kawaramachi both serve the area. Travellers in the neighbourhood can pair the district with Matsuo Taisha shrine or continue north toward Arashiyama.