Tahara Family Five-Story Pagoda

A Warrior's Pagoda in a Bamboo Grove

Tawara-ke Gojunoto (田原家五重塔, also written Tawara-ke Gojūnotō), a stone five-tiered pagoda at Kutsukake in the Ōta district of Kitsuki City, Oita Prefecture, was raised in the fourteenth century and designated an Important Cultural Property on 20 March 1954.

The pagoda stands 4.11 metres from ground to broken top, cut from hornblende andesite, at the foot of a low hill with a stand of moso bamboo behind it and rice fields running away in front. There is no hall, no fence, no ticket window. The Katsura River passes close by. Across the road rises the wooded mound that was Kutsukake castle.

English speakers should not picture the wooden five-storey pagodas of Nara and Kyoto. This belongs to a different family: the sōtō, a stone layered pagoda assembled from separately carved blocks, each roof and each shaft section a distinct piece stacked on the one below. Kyushu produced these in quantity through the Kamakura and Nanbokucho centuries, and this is among the largest of them.

Tradition names it as the memorial to Tawara Naohira, lord of Kutsukake castle. The Tawara were the earliest branch house of the Ōtomo, the family that governed Bungo province, and for several centuries they held the middle of the Kunisaki peninsula. Naohira is credited with founding the nearby temple of Hōdaji, and the ruined earthworks he defended sit within sight of his monument.

The Inscription, and a Date Worth Arguing About

In 1968 the pagoda was taken apart for repair, and the stones themselves gave up an inscription: Engen 4, that is, 1339. Both Kitsuki City and Oita Prefecture record the date on that basis.

Engen is a Southern Court era name. Japan in 1339 had two imperial lines and two calendars running at once, and the same year was Ryakuō 2 in the Northern Court reckoning used by the Ashikaga. Choosing Engen was not neutral. It signalled where the patron's loyalty lay, or at least which authority the mason was told to acknowledge.

One point needs flagging for anyone comparing sources. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database enters the date as Enbun 4, 1359, in its period field, while the structural note on that same record states that the pagoda carries an Engen 4 inscription. Enbun and Engen differ by a single character and twenty years. Kitsuki City's designation list, Oita Prefecture's register and the prefectural cultural properties encyclopedia all give 1339. The national database has not been amended.

What the designation recognises, beyond the dated inscription, is the completeness and the proportion of the thing. The base is built up in three tiers. Its sides are divided into three panels apiece, each carrying a kōzama, the ogee-arched recess that Japanese stonemasons cut as a decorative frame. The roofs are terayane, curving gently upward, with a single band of rafter form carved crisply into each underside. The eaves project only slightly but turn up hard at the corners, which gives the silhouette its lift.

Above the fifth roof, the sōrin, the finial mast that should crown any pagoda, is almost entirely lost. The Agency's record puts it plainly: everything from the roban base block upward is missing. Local accounts say a jewel finial once sat there. The loss is real, and it is also part of why the tower reads as it does now, stopping abruptly against the sky rather than tapering away.

Finding It, and What Else Is Nearby

There is no admission charge and no opening time, because there is nothing to open. The pagoda stands in the open air, managed by Kitsuki City, and can be seen at any hour. Photography is unrestricted. Visitors should keep off the base stones, which carry the carving.

Reaching it takes some attention. Prefectural Route 31 runs through the old village of Ōta, and near Tawara Elementary School a signboard for the pagoda marks the turn. Cross the bridge and the site lies a short way along at the foot of the slope. Drivers have reported that the road itself carries no advance sign, so the school makes a better landmark than the monument.

Beside the pagoda stand two gorintō, five-element stone stupas, and a broken stone lantern. The larger gorintō is well proportioned and in good condition, and it is easy to walk past while looking up at the tower. The Tawara family cemetery at Maruyama, a prefecturally designated historic site, lies in the same district.

Two more nationally designated stone monuments sit within a short drive, both designated on the same day in 1954: the Zaizen family hōtō at Ōta Ono, dated 1321, and another hōtō at Ōta Ishimaru, dated 1330. Seeing the five-tiered pagoda alongside them shows how much variety fourteenth-century masons in this district worked into a small area. Shirahige Tawara Shrine, on Route 31, holds its doburoku festival on 17 and 18 October, when unrefined sake brewed by the parishioners is offered and shared.