Iron Pagoda

One Pagoda, National Treasure since 1953

Iron Pagoda (鉄宝塔, Tetsu Hoto) is a Kamakura-period craft object owned by Saidaiji in Nara Prefecture, made an Important Cultural Property on 14 November 1953 and designated a National Treasure on that same day of 1953. The quantity is one pagoda.

Both steps fall on one date, the fourth such case here after the Tenjukoku embroidery and the two swords at Kasuga Taisha.

It stands 163.6 centimetres high overall, with a base 65.1 centimetres square, a body 43.3 centimetres across at the foot and eaves 67.6 centimetres wide. The date field gives 1284.

Where It Is and Who Owns It Are Recorded Apart

The place that holds it and the party that owns it are not the same.

The Agency's record gives the holding institution as the Nara National Museum, at 50 Noborioji-cho, Nara City, and the owner as Saidaiji.

A temple owns it and a museum keeps it.

Fourteen properties covered here have had a blank address field, among them the Hosoge sutra box, the red-laced armour and the gilded bronze staff head.

In those, the location was simply not written. Here the reverse: the location is named as a museum, and the split from the owner is plain to see.

Because a museum holds it, any chance to see it follows the museum's own schedule.

Two Dates Drawn from a Separate Text

The evidence for the date lies outside the object.

The Agency cites a record of the priest Eison's life: under the seventh day of the eighth month of 1284 it notes the completion of the iron pagoda, and under the second day of the ninth month its consecration.

The work was finished on one day and consecrated on another, twenty-six days apart.

At the Myooin pagoda, an inscription on the finial gave the day the rings were raised. At the Daizenji main hall, a pillar inscription confirmed the date. At the Shofukuji Jizo hall, an inscription on a bracket did the same.

All of those are characters on the object itself. Here the dates come from a passage in another book.

The object does carry an inscription: characters are incised on the central post. What is offered as evidence for the date, however, is the text.

What Is Absent Is Written Down Twice

The account of the form names parts the pagoda does not have.

Of the lower storey: it opens on four sides, but has no eaves of the kind seen on a built pagoda of this type.

Of the upper storey: it has no doors.

The absence of eaves and the absence of doors are each set down.

At the Kongobuji Fudo hall, a veranda without a railing entered the structural description. On the white-laced armour, the record noted that there are no forehead ornaments before turning to another feature.

Here absence is recorded in two places, and one of them by comparison with a building. A craft object is described by reference to architecture.

Seeing It

Saidaiji owns the pagoda and the Nara National Museum holds it.

Both the man who commissioned it and the man who made it are recorded: Eison, who revived Saidaiji, had the reliquary pagoda made by the master craftsman Fujiwara no Muneyasu and others in the Koan era.

One ordered it and the others made it. With the Mikazuki Munechika and the Nagamitsu naginata, signatures gave the maker. Here two men stand together in a sentence.

The assessment calls it the most complete surviving example of a Kamakura reliquary arrangement. The most complete, in those words.

It adds that the form is beautiful and the work shows fine skill in both cast bronze and forged iron: two techniques named together. Exhibition plans can change, so check the museum's information before travelling.