Tsuzumi Shrine Treasure Pagoda

A Buddhist Pagoda in a Shinto Precinct

The Stone Pagoda of Tsuzumi Shrine (鼓神社宝塔, Tsuzumi-jinja Hōtō, the shrine name also written 皷神社) stands in the shrine precinct at Kamitakada, Kita Ward, Okayama City, Okayama Prefecture, carved in 1346 and designated an Important Cultural Property on 28 June 1956.

The first thing to register is the contradiction built into that sentence. A hōtō is a Buddhist reliquary form, and the front of this one carries a seated Dainichi Nyorai, the cosmic Buddha of the Shingon school. It sits in the grounds of a shrine listed in the tenth-century Engishiki register and claimed as second shrine of Bizen's neighbouring province of Bitchū. Nothing is out of place. For most of Japanese history, Buddhist and Shinto practice occupied the same ground under a single system of belief, and the government order of 1868 that separated them stripped countless shrines of exactly this kind of object. Tsuzumi kept its pagoda.

The shrine enshrines figures from the Kibi pacification narratives found in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, among them Ōkibitsuhiko no Mikoto and Tsukawashirihiko no Mikoto. Five halls once stood here and the complex was known as Tsuzumi Gosha Daimyōjin. It was ranked a village shrine in the early Meiji reforms and promoted to prefectural shrine in 1881.

Cut Granite, Dated to the Day

The pagoda is granite, and it is large: 4.15 metres, recorded in older documents as one jō three shaku eight sun. That makes it the biggest stone hōtō in Okayama Prefecture.

The rear face of the shaft carries an inscription giving the date as the second day of the tenth month of Jōwa 2, along with the name of the fundraising monk Shōen and the mason Myōa. Jōwa 2 corresponds to 1346, placing the work in the early Nanbokuchō period, though the Agency for Cultural Affairs files it under early Muromachi in its period column. Dated stonework of this quality is uncommon, and the presence of a named mason is rarer still. Myōa also cut the stone torii at Hachiman Shrine in Shimoashimori, another nationally designated Important Cultural Property, in 1361, which allows a single craftsman's hand to be followed across fifteen years and two commissions.

Look at the base rather than the crown. The front of the plinth is divided into two panels, each framed by a kōzama moulding and filled with facing peacocks in a design derived from Ōmi models. The left flank carries opening lotus blooms in mirrored pairs, stems included. The right flank sets an opening lotus against a three-stemmed lotus. Beneath all of it runs a kaeribanaza, a thickly cut inverted-petal seat in double lotus form.

The shaft is hollowed into a niche on the front face, and the Dainichi Nyorai is carved in high relief within it. Above the railing course the stone is worked as a separate piece with noticeably more elaborate technique than the sections below, a shift that repays close attention.

Visiting the Precinct

The pagoda stands outdoors in an open precinct with no fence around it. The grounds can be entered freely at any hour, there is no admission charge, and photography is unrestricted. This is one of the easier nationally designated properties in Okayama to actually see, since nothing needs to be arranged in advance.

Come with low sun if you can. Relief carving on granite reads poorly under a high midday light and comes alive when shadows lengthen, and the peacock panels in particular need raking light to separate from the stone.

Driving is straightforward. The shrine lies about twenty minutes from the Okayama interchange on the Sanyō Expressway, and parking accommodates around twenty-six cars. By public transport the trip is longer: from Bitchū-Mikado Station, take the bus toward the rehabilitation centre for about thirty minutes, get off at Yamagamiguchi, and walk roughly twenty-five minutes.

The shrine office answers on 086-295-2298. Hoshi Shrine, a short distance away and without a resident priest, has its goshuin seal stamps issued here at Tsuzumi, so the two are usually visited together. Kibitsu Shrine, whose main hall and corridor are National Treasures, sits within reasonable reach on the same side of the city.