多宝塔Tahōtō (two-storey pagoda)

A tahōtō (多宝塔; lit. 'many-jewelled pagoda'; pronounced) is a form of Japanese pagoda found primarily at Esoteric Shingon and Tendai school Buddhist temples. It is unique among pagodas because it has an even number of stories (two). (The second story has a balustrade and seems habitable, but is nonetheless inaccessible and offers no usable space.) Its name alludes to Tahō Nyorai, who appears seated in a many-jewelled pagoda in the eleventh chapter of the Lotus Sutra. With square lower and cylindrical upper parts, a mokoshi 'skirt roof', a pyramidal roof, and a finial, the tahōtō or the larger daitō was one of the seven halls of a Shingon temple. After the Heian period, the construction of pagodas in general declined, and new tahōtō became rare. Six examples, of which that at Ishiyama-dera (1194) is the earliest, have been designated National Treasures.

There are no examples in China, whether architectural or pictorial, of anything that resembles the tahōtō, although there is a Song dynasty textual reference to a tahōtō with an encircling chamber.

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