Three-Story Pagoda at Hojuji Temple

A Momoyama Pagoda on the Slope of Mt. Tennōzan

A three-storied pagoda rises about 20 meters from its stone base to the tip of its bronze finial on the wooded flank of Mt. Tennōzan, the 270-meter hill that overlooks the meeting of the Kizu, Uji, and Katsura rivers at the southwestern edge of Kyoto Prefecture. It stands inside the precinct of Hōshaku-ji, a Shingon temple whose origins are traced to the year 724. The pagoda is officially dated to Keichō 9, the year 1604, which places its construction near the end of the Momoyama period.

Locally the building carries a more dramatic name: Ichiya-no-tō, the "one-night pagoda." The story attached to it holds that Toyotomi Hideyoshi had the tower raised in a single night to give thanks for his victory at the Battle of Yamazaki, fought across this same hillside in 1582. The arithmetic complicates the tale. Hideyoshi died in 1598, six years before the date recorded for the structure, and a wooden pagoda of this scale cannot be built overnight. The temple presents the account as tradition rather than fact, and the documented year of 1604 is the figure carried by the national cultural property register.

Hōshaku-ji sits at a place that mattered for centuries. The border between the old provinces of Yamashiro and Settsu ran nearby, and the narrow corridor between river and mountain made Tennōzan a point armies fought to hold. The pagoda has watched over that ground since the early seventeenth century.

Why It Is an Important Cultural Property

The pagoda was designated an Important Cultural Property on April 30, 1921. The register describes it in precise terms: a three-bay, three-storied tōba with a hongawara-buki roof, the formal tiling that alternates broad concave pan tiles with rounded cover tiles. Its columns are round throughout, a detail noted in the official record as sōenchū.

What gives a building like this its value is the way it preserves the carpentry conventions of its moment. Momoyama-period pagodas are comparatively few, and each surviving example records choices about proportion, bracketing, and roof curve that cannot be reconstructed from texts alone. The three diminishing roofs, the exposed eave rafters, and the central pillar that carries the finial above all three stories are the working vocabulary of a tradition that reached back centuries and would change again in the Edo period. A seated image of Dainichi Nyorai, the cosmic Buddha of the Shingon school, is enshrined within the ground floor.

The pagoda is not the only treasure on the hill. Hōshaku-ji also holds a celebrated set of Kamakura-period sculptures centered on a seated King Enma, the judge of the dead, together with his attendants, and a pair of guardian Niō figures in the gate. The three-storied pagoda is the temple's signature building and the piece most visitors come to see first.

What to Look For When You Visit

Approach the pagoda slowly. From the level of the main hall it reads as a compact, balanced tower, the three roofs stepping inward as the eye climbs. The round columns and the depth of the eaves give the lower story a sense of weight that the upper stories shed. In spring the surrounding cherry trees frame the structure; in late autumn the maples behind it turn, and the dark tiled roofs sit against the color.

Because the pagoda stands part way up Tennōzan, it appears at unexpected moments. Visitors walking up from the neighboring art museum often catch sight of the finial through the trees before the rest of the temple comes into view. The hill itself is laced with hiking paths, and the route to the summit passes the site of Yamazaki Castle, the fortress Hideyoshi built after his victory and used as a base until Osaka Castle was finished.

Set aside time for the Enma hall, where the Kamakura sculptures are kept. The seated King Enma, carved with a fierce expression and standing over 1.6 meters tall, is widely regarded as one of the finest such images in Japan. A stone in the precinct is pointed out as the seat Hideyoshi is said to have used during the campaign, and the temple's nickname, Takara-dera or "treasure temple," comes from a wooden mallet and striker kept here, objects an old tradition links to Emperor Shōmu and a dragon deity.

Around Ōyamazaki

Hōshaku-ji works well as the anchor of a half-day in Ōyamazaki, a small town wedged between Kyoto and Osaka. Right beside the temple is the Asahi Group Ōyamazaki Villa Museum of Art, housed in a 1920s mountain villa with gardens that look out over the river plain; the climb to the temple branches off the same approach. Lower down, near the stations, stands Myōki-an, home to Tai-an, a tiny tea room attributed to the tea master Sen no Rikyū and registered as a National Treasure. Tai-an requires advance reservation and is viewed only from outside.

The area is also known for whisky. The Suntory Yamazaki Distillery, Japan's oldest malt whisky distillery, sits a short walk from the stations and offers tours by reservation. Walkers can climb Tennōzan for wide views of the three-river confluence, and history-minded visitors will find markers for the 1582 battle and for the seventeen loyalists who made a stand here during the unrest of 1864.

Getting to the temple takes a little effort. The final approach is a steep paved slope, so sturdy shoes help, especially in wet weather.