Bitchu Kokubunji Temple Five-Storied Pagoda

What Is the Bitchu Kokubunji Temple Five-Storied Pagoda?

The Bitchu Kokubunji Temple Five-Storied Pagoda (備中国分寺五重塔, Bitchū Kokubunji Gojū-no-tō) is a late Edo-period wooden pagoda in the grounds of Bitchu Kokubunji Temple in Kamibayashi, Sōja City, Okayama Prefecture, and was designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan on December 18, 1980.

A kokubunji was a provincial temple. In 741 Emperor Shōmu ordered one built in every province of Japan to protect the realm through Buddhist ritual, and Bitchū Province received its temple on this spot. The Nara-period complex disappeared long ago, and the temple standing here today was revived in the mid-Edo period. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the pagoda as a large tower rising on the site of that ancient foundation.

The project was launched by the temple's priest around 1821, according to Sōja City. A restoration record compiled by the Japanese Association for Conservation of Architectural Monuments dates the raising of the ridgepole and the installation of the Buddhist images to 1835, and the work is said to have been finished in 1843 or 1844. Building the Bitchū Kokubunji pagoda took more than twenty years.

The national database gives a different kind of date: it files the building under the Bunsei era (1818 to 1829) of the late Edo period. Sources measure from different milestones, so no single construction year can be given.

In plan the pagoda is square, three bays on each side, with a Hongawarabuki tile roof on each of its five tiers. It reaches 34.315 m overall. The lower three stories are framed mainly in zelkova (keyaki) and the upper two mainly in pine. Sōja City notes that it is the only five-storied pagoda in Okayama Prefecture.

Why the Bitchu Kokubunji Temple Five-Storied Pagoda Is an Important Cultural Property

The Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out two qualities. The Bitchū Kokubunji pagoda shows the traits of its age very clearly, and its frame records how far carpentry had advanced by the early nineteenth century. Those were the grounds for its 1980 listing as an Important Cultural Property.

Start with proportion. The body of the tower is tall and the bronze finial on top, the sōrin, is short. Sōja City's tourism office adds that the upper and lower roofs are nearly the same size, which gives the building its narrow, upright profile.

Then there is decoration. The agency points to the Kaerumata, the frog-leg-shaped struts between the bracket sets, which here are carved without an outer frame, a detail typical of the period.

Most telling is the structure. A pagoda is organized around a central pillar, with four inner columns called shitenbashira set around it. At Bitchū Kokubunji these long inner columns are raised in stages between the great beams of each tier, a method the agency reads as evidence of how Edo carpenters had developed their craft.

What to Look For at the Bitchu Kokubunji Temple Five-Storied Pagoda

Step back and read the silhouette

Walk a little way off before you look up. With a short finial and roofs that barely shrink toward the top, the Bitchū Kokubunji pagoda reads almost as a single slender column against the sky.

That short finial is itself a result of restoration. The repair record explains that later additions had lengthened it, and conservators returned it to its intended size. It now stands 7.5 m tall, about 2.1 m lower than before the work, so the proportions you see are close to the builders' design.

Look under the first-story eaves

Up close, turn your attention to the underside of the lowest roof. Between the Kumimono bracket sets sit the frameless kaerumata that the national description highlights. The pagoda faces east, and its doors on that side are original pieces that were repaired and rehung during the restoration.

The interior and its painted ceiling

Inside the first story is a Shumidan altar platform, with four seated Buddhas arranged around the central pillar. Sōja City's cultural properties division identifies them as Shaka, Amida, Hōshō and Ashuku.

The coffered ceiling above is filled with painted panels. The city attributes them to Yokoyama Shuntoku, a resident of Osafune in Bizen Province, and describes celestial maidens along with flowers and birds. The tourism office counts 104 panels: four celestial maidens beside the inner columns and seasonal flowers on the rest. The two city pages disagree on the wood, one naming cedar and the other zelkova.

The Heisei-era restoration

The Bitchu Kokubunji Temple Five-Storied Pagoda had its roof relaid in 1915 and 1916 and again in 1961. The major campaign began in August 1990 and ended in March 1994.

It was planned as a partial dismantling, but a typhoon damaged the structure mid-project and the team switched to a full Kaitai shūri, taking the tower apart completely. The foundation stones stayed where they were. Sound timbers were mended and reused, and replacements were shaped to match the original workmanship.

Visiting the Bitchu Kokubunji Temple Five-Storied Pagoda

The temple grounds are open to everyone and there is no admission charge. The Bitchū Kokubunji pagoda is a building you view from outside; its interior is not normally open. For news of any opening, ask at the Kokubunji Tourist Information Center next to the temple (tel. 0866-94-3155, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.).

Photographing the exterior from the grounds is common, and Okayama's official tourism site promotes the pagoda as a photo spot. In winter the city and its tourism association light it up. In the 2025 season the lights stayed on between 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. each evening, December 23, 2025 through March 31, 2026.

By public transport, the gateway is JR Sōja Station. A taxi takes about 15 minutes, and a rental bicycle from the shop outside the station about 40 minutes. The Sōja Yamate loop bus reaches the Kibiji Motenashi-no-Yakata stop in about 20 minutes. You can also walk from JR Hattori Station on the Momotarō Line: the route past the Kibiji Culture Hall is about 5.2 km and takes roughly 1 hour 10 minutes.

Drivers can reach the temple in about 10 minutes from the Okayama-Sōja interchange on the Okayama Expressway or the Kurashiki interchange on the Sanyō Expressway. Free parking holds 200 cars. Fares, hours and transport details were checked in September 2026 and may change.