Five-storied Pagoda, Haguro-san
Interesting facts
- The pagoda stands near the start of a pilgrim stairway of 2,446 stone steps, about 1.7 km long, begun in 1648 under the abbot Ten'yลซ.
- Around 580 ancient cedars line the stone stairway, and the avenue is protected as a Special Natural Monument, Japan's highest grade for natural heritage.
- The thousand-year-old Jijisugi once had a partner, the 'grandmother cedar', which was lost to a typhoon in 1902.
- Before the Meiji reforms the pagoda held Buddhist images of Kannon, Gundari Myลล and Myลken.
- Without its finial, the wooden body of the tower itself rises about 22 metres.
- The pagoda was designated a National Treasure of Japan in 1966.
- The Michelin Green Guide Japan gives the pagoda its top rating of three stars.
- In 2016 the pagoda became part of the Dewa Sanzan Japan Heritage designation, a national scheme recognising cultural stories rather than single sites.
Why it is worth it
Deep in a forest of ancient cedars on the lower slope of Mount Haguro, a five-storied pagoda of unpainted wood rises almost 30 metres among the trunks. There is no temple around it any more, no courtyard and no gate; the tower stands alone beside the stone pilgrim path, its grey shingle roofs often wet with mist or edged with snow. It is a National Treasure of Japan and is said to be the oldest pagoda in the Tลhoku region.
Tradition attributes the first pagoda on this spot to the warrior Taira no Masakado in the 930s, though this cannot be confirmed. The present building dates from the fourteenth century: according to old Haguro records its pillars were raised in 1369 and the finial was lifted onto the roof in 1377, under the abbot Daihลji Masauji. The lord of Yamagata, Mogami Yoshiaki, had it repaired in 1608. The pagoda is about 29.2 metres high including the finial, built in the purely Japanese wayล style, with roofs of thin wooden shingles and the timber left in its natural colour without lacquer or paint. Close by grows the Jijisugi, the "grandfather cedar", a tree more than a thousand years old and a national natural monument.
Mount Haguro is the most accessible of the Dewa Sanzan, the Three Mountains of Dewa, which together with Gassan and Yudono have been sacred to the mountain ascetics of Shugendล for centuries; tradition traces their founding to Prince Hachiko in 593. Until the 1870s the mountain was a mixed Buddhist and Shinto centre, but the Meiji separation of the two faiths turned it into Dewa Shrine and swept away most of its temples and lodgings. The pagoda was one of the very few Buddhist buildings to survive. Its Buddhist images were removed, and it is now formally a subsidiary shrine dedicated to the Shinto deity ลkuninushi.
Getting there
The pagoda stands on the lower part of the main approach to Mount Haguro, in the Haguro district of Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture. Central Tsuruoka is about 13 km away; buses from Tsuruoka Station take about 40 minutes, followed by a short walk. Shonai Airport (SYO) is about 20 km away.
On these lists
38.70478, 139.96760per Wikidata