Kyoogokokuji Temple Miniature Five-Storied Pagoda

What the Kyoogokokuji Temple Miniature Five-Storied Pagoda is

Kyoogokokuji Temple Miniature Five-Storied Pagoda (教王護国寺五重小塔, the Gojū no Shōtō of Tō-ji, also written Kyōōgokoku-ji) is a small early Kamakura-period pagoda owned by Tō-ji in Kujo-cho, Minami Ward, Kyoto City, dated to around 1240 and designated an Important Cultural Property in 1955.

It stands just over 5 shaku 3 sun tall, about 1.6 meters, roughly the height of a person. Even so, the Agency for Cultural Affairs protects it as a building rather than as a craft object. Its database entry describes the form as a "three-bay, five-storied pagoda with plank roofs shaped like tiles" and counts it as 1 unit.

Both halves of that description matter. "Three-bay" means each story's front is divided by posts into three openings, as on a full-size pagoda. "Plank roofs shaped like tiles" means the roofs are made of wood but carved to look like hongawara, the round-and-flat tiling of major temples. In short, this is a real pagoda design reduced in scale, not a simplified model.

Found inside the Founder's Hall

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the Kyoogokokuji Temple Miniature Five-Storied Pagoda was kept in the inner sanctum of the Daishi-dō, also called the Saiin Mieidō or Founder's Hall, and came to light during repairs to that hall in 1955. It was designated on June 22 of the same year.

The Daishi-dō stands on the spot where Kūkai (Kōbō Daishi), the founder of Shingon Buddhism in Japan, is said to have lived. Tō-ji's website says that Kūkai planned the three-dimensional mandala of the Lecture Hall there and directed its construction. The little pagoda had been placed deep inside that hall.

The same agency text records that the pagoda was donated in the second year of the En'ō era by Senyōmon-in, a daughter of Emperor Go-Shirakawa. Tō-ji's own history credits Senyōmon-in with putting the temple's finances on a firm footing in the Kamakura period, when it was recovering from decline. The pagoda has come down as one of the gifts from that revival.

A note on the date

The explanatory text in the national database gives the donation year as "En'ō 2 (1340)." En'ō 2, however, corresponds to 1240, and the same database's date fields read "around En'ō 2" and "around 1240." The 1340 in the prose appears to be a typing error, and this article follows 1240.

The era name changed partway through 1240, from En'ō to Ninji, so some sources give the year as Ninji 1. Both refer to the same year.

What to look for

The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that the piece is finely made down to its details. Look at the Kyoogokokuji Temple Miniature Five-Storied Pagoda as a pagoda, part by part, rather than as a curio.

Start with the roofs. All five are wooden, yet their surfaces reproduce the ridged rows of a tiled roof.

Then study the front of each story. See if the rhythm of four posts and three openings carries all the way up, and how finely the bracketing under the eaves has been cut.

Finally, step back for the silhouette. On a full-size pagoda it is hard to judge how the roofs shrink story by story, because you are looking straight up. At about 1.6 meters, this one lets you take in the whole taper at roughly eye level.

Visiting the Kyoogokokuji Temple Miniature Five-Storied Pagoda

The Kyoogokokuji Temple Miniature Five-Storied Pagoda is not on permanent display. Tō-ji's Treasure Hall opens only during spring and autumn special exhibitions and rotates its objects by theme. The temple's exhibition archive shows the pagoda was included in the spring 2019 exhibition.

The Treasure Hall is open March 20 to May 25 and September 20 to November 25, 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. (last entry 4:30 p.m.), and admission is 600 yen for adults (checked on the Tō-ji website on September 15, 2026).

For autumn 2026, from September 20 to November 25, the exhibition theme is the art and history of Tō-ji's five-storied pagoda. The pagoda's miniature counterpart does not appear on the published list of main exhibits, however. If you are traveling to see it, ask Tō-ji about the current display before you go, and follow on-site guidance on photography.