Hofukuji Temple Three-Storied Pagoda

Hofukuji Temple Three-Storied Pagoda: A Tower Dated by Its Own Inscription

The Hofukuji Temple Three-Storied Pagoda (宝福寺三重塔, Hōfukuji Sanjū-no-tō) is a pagoda of 1376 standing on the rise behind the Buddha Hall of Hōfukuji, a Rinzai Zen temple in Ijirino, Soja City, Okayama Prefecture, and it was designated by the national government on April 25, 1927, and is today an Important Cultural Property.

It is three bays square, with all three roofs laid in Hongawarabuki tiles and the timber body painted vermilion. Soja City gives its total height as 18.47 m; Okayama Prefecture rounds it to about 18 m. Every post is round, and the central pillar, the shinbashira, stops at the ceiling of the first story instead of running down into it. The designation covers 1 pagoda, with 1 inscribed wooden plaque included as an attached item.

Nothing else at Hofukuji comes close to its age. Most of the temple's buildings were rebuilt between the Edo and Meiji eras, and Soja City's heritage page describes the Hofukuji Temple Three-Storied Pagoda as the only building to have escaped the fighting of 1575.

Why the Pagoda Matters

The date comes from the building itself. During a dismantling repair, an ink inscription was found bearing the year 1376, the second year of the Eiwa era, fixing the pagoda in the Nanboku-cho period of rival imperial courts. Okayama Prefecture's description calls that year the date of a rebuilding.

Soja City ranks it as the second-oldest pagoda in Okayama Prefecture, after the three-storied pagoda of Chofukuji in Mimasaka, built in 1285.

What the prefecture praises is proportion. The eaves reach far out, and the roofs step down from the first story to the third at a well-judged rate, giving the tower the bearing of a 14th-century pagoda. Soja City describes it as built essentially in the native wayo style rather than the Zen style of the halls below. Rinzai temples often placed their pagodas on higher ground behind or beside the main buildings, and that is exactly where this one stands.

The 1927 designation was made under the system of the time; since the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties took effect in 1950, the pagoda has been classed as an Important Cultural Property.

What to Look For

Stand below the Hofukuji Pagoda and compare its three roofs. The first is the broadest, and each one above is a little smaller, but the reduction is gentle enough that the tower looks planted rather than spindly. The deep eaves throw heavy shadows beneath each roof, so vermilion body and grey tile read as alternating bands.

One feature you cannot see is the central pillar. At Hofukuji it is stopped at the ceiling of the first story and does not continue into the room below, a structural detail Okayama Prefecture singles out in its description.

The ink painter Sesshu trained at Hofukuji as a boy, and Soja City suggests he would have looked at this pagoda every day and probably went inside it. By 1420, the year Sesshu is believed to have been born, the tower had already stood here for more than 40 years.

Visiting the Pagoda

Only the exterior of the Hofukuji Temple Three-Storied Pagoda can be seen; Okayama Prefecture lists its public access as exterior only, and no opening of the interior is announced.

The pagoda stands on the rise behind the Buddha Hall. At more than 18 m tall, it needs some distance if you want the spire in the same view as the base; to study the brackets and the underside of the first-story eaves, move in close instead.

No photography rules are posted by the temple or the tourism pages, but put the camera away during services. The vermilion body looks brightest in morning sun from the east.