MEET IT IN 30 SECONDS
法隆寺五重塔
The five-storey wooden pagoda stands in Hōryūji’s Western Precinct at Ikaruga, Nara. A Buddhist reliquary tower, it is thought by the Agency for Cultural Affairs to have been built in the late seventh century, after the Golden Hall. Its diminishing upper stages, deep eaves and tall finial define its profile.
The pagoda stands beside the Golden Hall in the Western Precinct and enshrines Buddhist relics. Hōryūji includes many buildings, precincts and treasures. This particular tower has a construction history of its own, so the temple’s foundation date cannot simply be assigned to the surviving pagoda.
The pagoda rises about 32.5 metres from its base. The temple describes the fifth storey’s structural body as about half the size of the first. Deep eaves reinforce the tapering silhouette. The heritage description also notes a change from three structural bays to two at the fifth stage; a bay is the space between columns.
Cloud-shaped blocks and bracket arms organize the timberwork beneath the eaves, a distinctive feature of Hōryūji’s early architecture. The tower rises from a double platform and has a lower surrounding roof, or mokoshi, around its first stage. That additional roof does not make it a six-storey pagoda.
Tak Kyung-baek’s analysis identifies blocks and cloud-shaped bracket arms at the column head, together with a straight arm above, supporting a diagonal tail rafter, the odaruki. Further blocks and arms project the support outward. The sloping common rafters, jidaruki, also rest on transverse members at several inner and outer positions, transmitting roof loads to the column framework.
The original first-storey section below lets the eye follow the deep eave extending left, the diagonal tail rafter and the sloping rafters above, then return along the supporting timberwork to the columns. This outer-frame support differs from the central shaft’s task of carrying the finial.
The temple locates Buddhist relics in the foundation stone beneath the central pillar. The heritage description identifies this as a buried foundation supporting the central shaft. Below-ground enshrinement, ground-level sculpture and the rising timber structure form connected parts of the tower.
For this tower, the heritage account describes short round columns set on column platforms from the second stage upward. A Kyoto University lecture similarly explains wooden pagodas as layered assemblies of shorter columns, rather than outer posts all running uninterrupted from ground to summit.
The central shaft is distinct from the surrounding framework carrying the tiered body. The timber-construction lecture explains its role in supporting the finial above the upper roof. It should not be imagined as a single post carrying all five roofs by itself.
Some Japanese pagodas have suspended central pillars. Hōryūji’s heritage description instead places its central shaft on a foundation stone buried below ground. These arrangements differ between towers, so a suspended pillar in another pagoda does not describe Hōryūji’s foundation.
In a 2011 JST interview, Tokyo Skytree design supervisor Kiichi Sumikawa discussed the relative separation of Hōryūji’s central shaft and surrounding body. He also described new technologies such as hydraulic dampers in the modern tower. This is a design comparison, not an assertion that the two structures work identically.
Hōryūji dates the temple’s foundation to around 607 and cites the Nihon shoki account of a fire in 670. The World Heritage nomination identifies the earlier remains as the Wakakusa precinct and describes rebuilding on a changed site to create the present Western Precinct.
The heritage account places the surviving pagoda after the Golden Hall, probably in the late seventh century. The temple explicitly dates the clay tableaux to 711, after completion of the tower. Here 711 dates the sculpture, not a precisely documented completion of the building.
At the lowest level, clay-built, cave-like settings surround the central pillar on four sides. The east presents Mañjuśrī visiting the ill Vimalakīrti for their dialogue. The north shows Śākyamuni entering nirvana amid mourning disciples; the west, the distribution of relics; and the south, Maitreya preaching. Together they create a Buddhist narrative within the tower.
The temple records a lightning strike during the Kamakura period without serious damage. It explains the sickles hanging from the finial through a traditional belief that sharp blades would keep thunder demons away. Protective charms were later hung on the tiers; lightning rods protect the building today.
Aoyagi’s study of the Shōwa restoration records identifies Keichō repairs in 1603–04 and Genroku repairs in 1696–98 for the Golden Hall and pagoda. The former introduced structural reinforcement; eaves repairs and additions had already occurred earlier. Twentieth-century conservators therefore encountered a tower shaped by successive interventions, rather than wholly untouched seventh-century fabric. The Shōwa work used investigation to restore earlier forms where possible, while retaining some later additions, including the mokoshi.
The tower received protection under the earlier law in 1897 and National Treasure designation under the present system in 1951. During dismantling repairs from 1941 to 1952, a decayed lower section of the central pillar was removed and new timber spliced in. A sample from the removed portion made later tree-ring research possible.
Takumi Mitsutani’s 2001 study examined the surviving outer rings and sapwood of the sample and dated felling to 594. That precedes the usual dating of the surviving tower. It establishes the age of the timber; the measurement alone does not explain its intervening storage or incorporation into the present structure.
Around 607 dates the temple’s foundation; the surviving pagoda belongs to rebuilding after the 670 fire and is generally placed in the late seventh century.
No. It is a mokoshi, an additional surrounding roof at the first stage; the pagoda remains five-storeyed.
No. The surrounding layered timber framework carries the tower body, while the central shaft supports the finial.
The temple dates the clay tableaux, made after the tower’s completion, to 711.
It dates the felling of the central-pillar timber, not the construction of the surviving pagoda.
They project support out from the column head, carry the tail rafter and work with inner and outer members supporting the sloping rafters.