Saidaiji Temple Bell Tower Gate

A gate built into a wall

Saidaiji Temple Bell Tower Gate is a two-storey gate of the mid-Edo period, dated by the Agency for Cultural Affairs to between 1661 and 1751, standing in the middle of the earthen wall that divides the Saidaiji precinct in Higashi-ku, Okayama City, Okayama Prefecture, and it was placed on the register of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2019. The roof is Irimoya-zukuri with Hongawarabuki, and the plan is a single bay.

The building area is ten square meters. Almost nothing at Saidaiji is smaller, and yet the gate carries a bell and controls the only passage through a wall that separates the northern and southern halves of the grounds. Function here has been squeezed into the least possible volume.

On the lower level, Kōryō arched beams span the front and rear faces and plank doors hang on the line of the main posts. The upper level opens out to three bays front and back, with the central bay left free so the bell can be struck and heard.

Registered for a different reason

Six of the seven registered structures at Saidaiji were listed as models of design. Saidaiji Temple Bell Tower Gate is the exception. It was registered in 2019 under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the country, which is a statement about where a building sits rather than how it is put together.

That reading makes sense on the ground. The gate is inseparable from the earthen wall it interrupts. Remove it and the wall becomes a barrier; leave it and the wall becomes a threshold. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the structure as preserving the architectural character of the precinct in the mid-Edo period, and it is the relationship between wall, gate and the spaces on either side that does the preserving.

The dating carries some uncertainty. The registration record gives a range across the middle of the Edo period. The temple's own guide places the building in the eighteenth century and suggests it may belong to the Enpō era, close in date to the Niō gate and the founder's hall. The two accounts overlap without agreeing precisely, and neither rests on a dated inscription.

The details are consistent with a careful, small-scale job. The Kumimono are single-stepped, the intermediate supports are simple strut-and-block units, and the bracketing beneath the balcony is the three-block Mitsudo-gumi type. The temple notes chamfered square posts below and a deep double-tiered eave above, which is why the upper storey looks heavier than the lower one.

What to look for on site

The bell is the reason most visitors stop. Cast on the Korean peninsula in the early Goryeo period, in the tenth or eleventh century, it is the largest Korean bell surviving in Japan and is counted by Saidaiji among its three sacred treasures. It did not always hang here: until the Meiji era it was suspended in the stone gate at the southern edge of the precinct, and it was moved to Saidaiji Temple Bell Tower Gate afterwards.

Look at the profile of the bell rather than only its size. Korean bells of this period carry a single suspension loop worked as a dragon, alongside a hollow tube beside it, and decorative panels on the body that Japanese bells of the same date do not use. The temple calls it the Dragon Bell.

Around the gate hang paper lanterns bearing the names of the sponsors and the fuku-otoko, the men who seized the sacred billets at successive stagings of the Saidaiji Eyō. Reading down the list gives a compressed history of the festival that no plaque supplies.

During the first three days of the New Year the bell is rung as the Bell of Invited Fortune and visitors may strike it. At other times it is not available for general ringing, so anyone hoping to hear it should plan around that window.

Visiting Saidaiji Temple Bell Tower Gate

The precinct stays open around the clock and Saidaiji Temple Bell Tower Gate can be seen and walked through at any hour without charge. Movement is restricted during the Eyō in February, when the ground on both sides of the wall is used for the festival.

Paid admission at the temple covers the interiors of the main hall and the Gooshoden at 500 yen for adults and 200 yen for children, received from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with 100 yen off for groups of ten or more. The upper storey of this gate is not part of that, and no public access to the bell chamber is advertised outside the New Year ringing. The amulet counter opens from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Photography of the gate and the bell from ground level presents no problem in ordinary circumstances. The temple publishes no rule for photography inside its buildings, so check the notices on site.

It is about ten minutes on foot from Saidaiji Station on the JR Akō Line. Buses from the Okayama Tenmaya Bus Centre take roughly 30 minutes to Saidaiji Bus Centre, and the walk from there is another ten. Parking is provided inside the precinct.