Ukishima Thirteen-Story Pagoda: Japan's Largest Surviving Stone Stupa
On a slender man-made island in the middle of the Uji River, a single stone tower rises 15.2 meters into the air. Thirteen tiers of weathered granite stack against the open sky, set off by the dark green of the surrounding water and the vermilion arch of Kisen Bridge nearby. This is the Ukishima Jūsanjū-no-tō, built in 1286 and still the tallest pre-modern stone pagoda standing anywhere in Japan.
The pagoda belongs to Hōjō-in, a small temple a few minutes' walk away that locals call Hashidera, the "Bridge Temple." It does not advertise itself loudly. There is no admission gate, no ticket booth, no fixed visiting hours. You simply cross a red lacquered bridge from the bank near Byōdō-in, and the stone column is there in front of you, framed by pine and maple.
A Monk, a Bridge, and a River Full of Fish
The story behind the pagoda begins not with religion but with engineering. The Uji Bridge, traditionally said to have first been built in the year 646 by the monk Dōtō, was one of the three great bridges of ancient Japan. By the late thirteenth century, however, the Uji River's repeated floods had reduced it to a ruin. In 1284 the imperial court turned to Eison (1201–1290), a reform-minded Buddhist priest from Saidai-ji in Nara, and asked him to rebuild it.
Eison was an unusual choice. He was a monk of the Shingon Risshū school, devoted to monastic discipline and to the protection of all living creatures. Repairing a bridge was not a typical assignment for someone of his standing. Yet he accepted, and in the course of the work he came to believe that the river itself needed to be settled before the bridge could safely stand. The Uji had long been famous for its ajiro weirs, traps used to catch the river's celebrated ayu sweetfish. To Eison, the souls of those fish were a presence to be reckoned with.
So in 1286, the year the new bridge was completed, he had a small island built upstream and shaped like a boat. The fishing weirs and tackle of the river were buried beneath it. On top, he raised the stone pagoda we see today, dedicated to the memory of the fish and the safety of the bridge. The ceremony of dedication, held that November and attended by the retired Emperor Kameyama, doubled as a hōjō-e — a rite of releasing captive animals back into the wild. Hōjō-in takes its name from that ceremony.
Why the Pagoda Matters
Designated an Important Cultural Property in March 1953, the Ukishima Jūsanjū-no-tō is valued for three intertwined reasons.
First is its sheer scale. At 15.2 meters from the top of the base to the tip of the finial, no other pre-modern stone pagoda surviving in Japan comes close. The thirteen tiers — a number with esoteric Buddhist significance — diminish in measured steps, each cornice carved from a single block of granite. Standing at its foot and looking up, one feels the strict mathematics of the proportions before reading anything of the history.
Second is the carving on the first story. Each of the four faces bears a Sanskrit seed-syllable (shuji) cut in the deep V-shaped yagen-bori technique, representing the Four Buddhas of the Diamond Realm mandala: Akshobhya to the east, Ratnasambhava to the south, Amitābha to the west, and Amoghasiddhi to the north. The lettering is unhurried, slightly inset, and survives almost untouched after seven centuries.
Third is the inscription on the base. On the north face, more than a thousand characters chronicle the long history of the Uji Bridge, Eison's restoration of it, and the building of the pagoda itself — an exceptional piece of medieval documentation. The south face carries a later inscription added in 1650, recording a Keian-era repair. Few stone monuments in Japan record their own story this thoroughly.
What to Look For When You Visit
The pagoda you see today is not entirely the original. In 1756, a massive flood of the Hōreki era brought the tower down, and most of it lay buried in the riverbed for a hundred and fifty years. In 1907 a lay Buddhist movement based in Okayama, the Fukudenkai, took up the cause of recovery; excavation began that autumn and the pagoda was raised again in August 1908. The finial and the ninth-tier roof are replacements made at that time, slightly newer in colour than the rest. Look for the subtle difference in weathering — it is one of the small pleasures of seeing the tower in person.
Walk a full circle around the base before stepping back. Each face shows a different seed-syllable, and the carving on the north side that records the founding inscription is best read in the morning light, when the sun strikes the granite from the southeast. The base itself is a stepped kasa platform with eight lotus petals carved around its upper register — a detail easy to miss against the larger composition.
The setting matters too. The island, called Tō-no-shima ("Pagoda Island"), is connected to both banks of the Uji River by footbridges. From the upstream end you can see herons hunting in the shallows; in summer, cormorant fishing boats moor just below the Kisen Bridge. The pagoda is at its most photogenic in late autumn, when the maples along the banks turn red, and in early April, when cherry trees frame the silhouette of the tower from across the water.
Around the Pagoda
Tō-no-shima sits at the heart of Uji's heritage district, and the pagoda is best appreciated as the centerpiece of an unhurried half-day. Byōdō-in, the UNESCO World Heritage temple whose Phoenix Hall appears on the back of every ten-yen coin, stands less than five minutes' walk to the west. Across the river on the opposite bank, Ujigami Jinja — also UNESCO-listed, and home to the oldest surviving shrine architecture in Japan — can be reached on foot in under fifteen minutes by way of Asagiri Bridge.
Closer to the pagoda is Hōjō-in itself, the temple that owns it. The grounds contain the Uji-bashi Danpi, an ancient stone fragment from the original bridge inscription. The famous tea shops of Byōdō-in Omotesandō — Nakamura Tōkichi, Itohkyuemon, and others, several with histories going back to the Edo period — line the approach to Byōdō-in and are a natural stop for matcha sweets after seeing the pagoda. For those with more time, the Zen temple of Kōshō-ji a short walk upstream is especially beautiful when its long approach, the Kotozaka, is in autumn colour.
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Q&A
- Is this really the oldest stone pagoda in Japan, as some guidebooks claim?
- No, despite occasional tourist literature to that effect. The Sekitō-ji three-story pagoda in Shiga Prefecture is older, dating to the early Nara period, and the Tō-no-Mori pagoda in Nara is the oldest surviving thirteen-tier stone pagoda. What Ukishima can fairly claim is the title of the largest pre-modern stone pagoda surviving in Japan.
- Can I go inside the pagoda or see the items placed within it?
- No. The pagoda is a solid stone monument, not a building one enters. A separate group of treasures recovered from inside it during the Hōreki flood — including a Nyoirin Kannon statue, a gilt reliquary, a vajra bell, and a gold-lettered Lotus Sutra on indigo paper — is designated a Kyoto Prefectural Cultural Property and is not normally on public display.
- Is there an admission fee or a closing time?
- No. The pagoda stands within Kyoto Prefectural Uji Park, which is freely open at all hours. Footbridges from both banks of the river give access, although the park can become slippery in heavy rain and is sometimes partially closed during river-management works.
- When is the best season to see it?
- Late March to early April for cherry blossoms along both banks; mid-November to early December for the maples on the surrounding hills. Summer evenings have their own atmosphere, when the cormorant fishing boats gather at the bridge and the air over the river cools the otherwise hot Uji afternoon.
- How does it connect to the Tale of Genji?
- The pagoda postdates Murasaki Shikibu's eleventh-century novel by more than two hundred years, so it does not appear in the text. But it stands within the landscape of the "Ten Chapters of Uji" — the final volumes of the Tale, set along this same stretch of river. The Tale of Genji Museum is a fifteen-minute walk north of the pagoda, on the east bank.
Basic Information
| Official name | Ukishima Jūsanjū-no-tō (浮島十三重塔) |
|---|---|
| Designation | Important Cultural Property (Buildings), Agency for Cultural Affairs designation no. 01192 |
| Date of designation | 31 March 1953 |
| Quantity | 1 unit (基) |
| Period | Late Kamakura — Kōan 9 (1286) |
| Structure | Stone thirteen-story stupa, granite, approx. 15.2 m in height |
| Builder | The monk Eison (1201–1290) of Saidai-ji, Nara |
| Location | Tōnokawa, Uji City, Kyoto Prefecture (within Kyoto Prefectural Uji Park, on the island known as Tō-no-shima) |
| Owner | Hōjō-in (放生院, Hashidera) |
| Access | Approx. 10 min on foot from Keihan Uji Station; approx. 15 min on foot from JR Uji Station. There is no dedicated car park; the nearest is the Uji municipal car park used by Byōdō-in visitors, about 300 m away. |
| Admission | Free; open at all times as part of a public park |
| Related designation | Items recovered from inside the pagoda (Ukishima Jūsanjū-no-tō Nōchi-hin) — Kyoto Prefectural Tangible Cultural Property, designated 14 March 2003 |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database — Ukishima Jūsanjū-no-tō (Agency for Cultural Affairs)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/102/1977
- Hōjō-in (Uji City) — Wikipedia
- https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/放生院_(宇治市)
- Jūsanjū Sekitō — Wikipedia
- https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/十三重石塔
- Jūsanjū Sekitō / Kyoto Prefectural Uji Park (Ocha-no-Kyoto)
- https://ochanokyoto.jp/spot/detail.php?sid=293
- Uji Park — Kyoto Prefecture official site
- https://www.pref.kyoto.jp/koen-annai/uji.html
- Ukishima Jūsanjū Sekitō — Kyototsuu Encyclopedia
- https://www.kyototuu.jp/Temple/Ukishima13JyuusekiTou.html
Last verified: 2026.05.16