Fusebachi Finial from the Three-Storied Pagoda of Obaradera, Yamato Province

A Finial Inscribed with the Year 715, National Treasure since 1953

The Fusebachi Finial from the Three-Storied Pagoda of Obaradera, Yamato Province (大和国粟原寺三重塔伏鉢) is a Nara-period bronze finial member in Nara Prefecture, designated a National Treasure in 1953, on 31 March. It had become an Important Cultural Property on 17 April 1902. The quantity is one piece, the category archaeological materials, and the designation number 00012.

What is designated is not the pagoda but the finial. A fusebachi is part of the mast that rises above a pagoda roof, an inverted-bowl member set on the base plate. The three-storied pagoda of Obaradera is gone; the finial is what survives.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes the inscription: dated the fourth month of the eighth year of Wado, which corresponds to 715, and both the year fields read 715. The commentary is a single line, material of the Nara period, and carries no words of assessment.

The Inscription Records the Temple's History

What gives this piece its standing is the text cut into it.

Sakurai City records what the inscription says. Nakatomi no Ason Oshima vowed to found the temple in memory of Prince Kusakabe, son of the emperors Tenmu and Jito, but died without fulfilling it. Hime no Ason Nukata then took twenty-two years to raise the buildings on this ground, enshrine a Shakyamuni image of the standard sixteen-foot scale, build the three-storied pagoda, and pray for the repose of Prince Kusakabe and of Oshima who had made the vow.

The one who vowed, the one who carried it through, the years it took, what was built and for whom prayers were offered all sit within a single inscription. Sakurai City calls it a valuable cultural property from which the date of building and the course of construction can be known.

Of Hime no Ason Nukata it has been suggested that she was the Manyoshu poet Nukata no Okimi, once wife of Emperor Tenmu, and that Oshima was her husband in later life. That remains a suggestion and is not established. What the inscription gives is the name Hime no Ason Nukata.

Found in a Storehouse at Tanzan

The finial was not excavated from the site of Obaradera.

Sakurai City records that it was found in the middle Edo period in the treasure store of Tanzan Myorakuji, now Tanzan Shrine. It came to light not at the temple site but in the store of another temple.

Obaradera stood in the eastern part of Sakurai City, on the northern foot of the Ryumon range, and its site lies on slightly higher ground behind the Tenmangu shrine south of the settlement. Foundation stones of the pagoda and other buildings remain, but no excavation has been carried out and the layout of the precinct is not known.

The central foundation stone at the pagoda site is about 61 centimetres across and 15 centimetres deep, and no longer stands where it was. The surrounding stones for the inner and outer columns do remain in place. The stone marking the centre was moved; those around it stayed.

The Site Carries Its Own Designation

The site of Obaradera is a national Historic Site, a designation separate from that of the finial.

Object and site are designated under different heads. Since the finial did not come from the site, the two are not linked by excavation but by the temple named in the inscription being the temple whose site remains.

The inscription records that a Shakyamuni image of the standard sixteen-foot scale was enshrined and a three-storied pagoda built. That standard gives a seated figure about 2.4 metres high. Neither the pagoda nor the image survives.

The low designation number, 00012, marks an early entry among archaeological materials: Important Cultural Property in 1902, National Treasure in 1953.

Seeing It

The Agency's database leaves both the location field and the holding institution field blank. The present place of keeping cannot be read from the official record.

The piece has descended among the treasures of Tanzan Shrine, and it has been shown in exhibitions at the Nara National Museum. To see it, check the information of Tanzan Shrine or the museum for any planned display.

The site of Obaradera is at Obara in Sakurai City. Only foundation stones remain, with no buildings, but the central stone and those of the inner and outer columns can be seen. Object and site are in different places.

The site is reached by car from Sakurai Station on the Kintetsu Osaka Line.