Japanese pagoda

The stupa was originally a simple mound containing the Buddha's ashes which in time became more elaborate, while its finial grew proportionally larger.

[2] After reaching China, the stupa met the Chinese watchtower and evolved into the pagoda, a tower with an odd number of stories.

[note 2] In Japan it evolved in shape, size and function, finally losing its original role as a reliquary.

The more difference in length (a parameter called teigen (逓減, gradual diminution) in Japanese) between stories, the more solid and secure the pagoda seems to be.

[5] Vice versa, recent pagodas tend to be steeper and have shorter finials, creating svelter silhouettes.

From the structural point of view, old pagodas had a stone base (心礎, shinso) over which stood the main pillar (心柱, shinbashira).

Originally the centerpiece of the Shingon and Tendai garan, they were moved later to its edges and finally abandoned, in particular by the Zen sects, the last to appear in Japan.

[7] They gradually lost importance and were replaced by the kondō (golden hall), because of the magic powers believed to lie within the images the building housed.

This loss of status was so complete that Zen schools, which arrived late in Japan from China, normally do not have any pagoda in their garan.

The layout of four early temples clearly illustrates this trend: they are in chronological order Asuka-dera, Shitennō-ji, Hōryū-ji, and Yakushi-ji.

Stone pagodas (sekitō) are usually made of materials like apatite or granite, are much smaller than wooden ones and are finely carved.

Like wooden ones, they are mostly classifiable on the basis of the number of stories as tasōtō or hōtō, but there are however some styles hardly ever seen in wood, namely the gorintō, the muhōtō, the hōkyōintō and the kasatōba.

[8] With a few very rare exceptions, tasōtō (also called tajūtō, 多層塔) have an odd number of stories, normally comprised between three and thirteen.

The tallest still extant is a 13-storey pagoda at Hannya-ji in Nara, which is 14.12 m. They are often dedicated to Buddha and offer no usable room, but some have a small space inside which holds a sacred image.

jewel stupa) is a pagoda consisting of four parts: a low foundation stone, a cylindrical body with a rounded top, a four-sided roof and a finial.

five ring tower) is a pagoda found almost only in Japan and believed to have been first adopted by the Shingon and Tendai sects during the mid Heian period.

[1] In all its variations, the gorintō is made of five blocks (although that number can sometimes be difficult to detect), each having one of the five shapes which symbolize of the Five Elements believed to be the basic building blocks of reality: earth (cube), water (sphere), fire (pyramid), air (crescent), and ether, energy, or void (lotus).

The hōkyōintō (宝篋印塔) is a large stone pagoda so called because it originally contained the Hōkyōin (宝篋印) dharani (陀羅尼) sūtra.

[5] The sūtra it sometimes hides contain all the pious deeds of a Tathagata Buddha, and the faithful believe that, by praying in front of the hōkyōintō, their sins will be canceled, during their lives they will be protected from disasters and after death they will go to heaven.

[5]（Tanzan Jinja in Sakurai, Nara, has a pagoda having thirteen, which however for structural reasons is classified separately, and is not considered a tasōtō.

A wooden hōtō is a rare type of pagoda consisting of four parts: a low foundation stone, a cylindrical body with a rounded top, a pyramidal roof and a finial.

[10] Unlike the similar tahōtō (see section below) it has no square enclosed pent roof (mokoshi) around its cylindrical core.

The hōtō was born during the early Heian period, when the Tendai and Shingon Buddhist sects first arrived in Japan.

[10] The tahōtō is a type of wooden pagoda unique for having an even number of stories (two), the first square with a rounded core, the second circular.

This style of tō was created surrounding the cylindrical base of a hōtō (see above) with a square, roofed corridor called mokoshi.

Often offertory strips of wood with five subdivisions and covered with elaborate inscriptions called sotōba (卒塔婆) can be found at tombs in Japanese cemeteries (see photo in the gallery below).