("five-ringed tower") is a Japanese type of

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

pagoda A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist but sometimes Taoist, ...

believed to have been first adopted by the

Shingon Shingon monks at Mount Koya is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asia, originally spread from India to China through traveling monks such as Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra. Kn ...

and

Tendai , also known as the Tendai Lotus School (天台法華宗 ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just "''hokke shū''") is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition (with significant esoteric elements) officially established in Japan in 806 by the Japanese m ...

sects during the mid

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japan ...

. It is used for memorial or funerary purposesKōjien Japanese Dictionary and is therefore common in Buddhist temples and cemeteries. It is also called ("five-ringed stupa") or , where the term ''sotoba'' is a transliteration of the Sanskrit word

stupa A stupa ( sa, स्तूप, lit=heap, ) is a mound-like or hemispherical structure containing relics (such as ''śarīra'' – typically the remains of Buddhist monks or nuns) that is used as a place of meditation. In Buddhism, circum ...

. The stupa was originally a structure or other sacred building containing a relic of Buddha or of a saint, then it was gradually stylized in various ways and its shape can change quite a bit according to the era and to the country where it is found.Home Study Course on Basic Buddhism Often offertory strips of wood with five subdivisions and covered with elaborate inscriptions also called ''sotoba'' can be found at tombs in Japanese cemeteries (see photo below). The inscriptions contain

sūtra ''Sutra'' ( sa, सूत्र, translit=sūtra, translit-std=IAST, translation=string, thread)Monier Williams, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, Entry fo''sutra'' page 1241 in Indian literary traditions refers to an ap ...

and the posthumous name of the dead person. These can be considered stupa variants.

Structure and meaning

In all its variations, the ''gorintō'' includes five rings (although that number can often be difficult to detect by decoration), each having one of the five shapes symbolic of the Five Elements, ( Mahabhuta in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

, or

Godai Godai are the five elements in Japanese Buddhist thought of earth (''chi''), water (''sui''), fire (''ka''), wind (''fu''), and void (''ku''). The concept is related to Buddhist Mahābhūta and came over China from India. The Japanese Buddh ...

in Japanese): the earth ring (cube), the water ring (sphere), the fire ring (pyramid), the air ring (crescent), and the ether ring, (or energy, or void). The last two rings (air and ether) are visually and conceptually united into a single subgroup. The last shape, ether, is the one that changes most according to the country, and in Japan it is close to that of a lotus flower. The rings express the idea that after death our physical bodies will go back to their original, elemental form. ''Gorintō'' are usually made of stone, but some built in wood, metal, or crystal exist. On each section are often carved from top to bottom the Sanskrit letters ''kha'' (void, or in Japanese), ''ha'' (air, or ), ''ra'' (fire, or ), ''va'' (water, or ), and ''a'' (earth, or ),Article "Gorintō", Japanese Wikipedia, accessed on April 10, 2008 and in Nichiren and

temples sometimes a ''gorintō'' will have carved on it the (see photo). The ''gorintō'' as a symbol belongs to literally "secret teachings", term often translated as "esoteric Buddhism"), a Japanese term that refers to the

esoteric Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas ...

Vajrayāna Vajrayāna ( sa, वज्रयान, "thunderbolt vehicle", "diamond vehicle", or "indestructible vehicle"), along with Mantrayāna, Guhyamantrayāna, Tantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, are names referring t ...

practices of the

school and the related practices that make up part of the

school.Article Mikkyo, accessed on April 10, 2008 In those esoteric disciplines, the first two shapes (the cube and the sphere) represent the most perfect doctrine, and are supposed to contain in themselves the other three. Together they represent the (lit. "real world"), that is the realm of perfect understanding, whereas the others constitute the (lit. "world of mutation")，or the world of impermanence, which includes the , the world we live in. On a second level of symbolism, each part of the ''gorintō'' also represents an element of change in both ''Jutsuzaikai'' and ''Henkai''. * The top symbol fuses the shape of a crescent, representing wisdom, and a triangle, representing principle. The fusion of these qualities in the Genshōkai and Henkai represents perfection, or Buddhahood. * The crescent of water represents receptivity, and is similar to a cup ready to receive from the heavens. * The triangle is a point of transition between two worlds and as such represents both unification and movement. It indicates the activity necessary to reach Enlightenment. * The circle represents completion, or Wisdom attainment. * The square is a symbol of the four elements. Sotoba At Kurosawa-Akira's-grave

On a last level of symbolism, the shapes represent the order in which the student progresses in his or her spiritual studies. * The square is the basis, the will to attain perfection. * The circle is the attainment of equanimity. * The triangle represents the energy created in pursuit of the truth. * The crescent represents the development of intuition and awareness. * The topmost shape represents perfection.

History in Japan

The theory of five elements was born in India, but the development of the Japanese ''gorintō'' shows the deep influence of Mikkyō, and in particular of

Kūkai Kūkai (; 27 July 774 – 22 April 835Kūkai was born in 774, the 5th year of the Hōki era; his exact date of birth was designated as the fifteenth day of the sixth month of the Japanese lunar calendar, some 400 years later, by the Shingon se ...

and Kakuban. The use of ''gorintō'' is thought to have begun in the second half of the

. The oldest known examples can be found at Chūsonji,

Iwate Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. It is the second-largest Japanese prefecture at , with a population of 1,210,534 (as of October 1, 2020). Iwate Prefecture borders Aomori Prefecture to the north, Akita Prefectu ...

, are a mix of ''gorintō'' and '' hōtō'' (two-storied Buddhist tower) and go back to 1169. They then came into normal use during the

Kamakura period The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle b ...

and are still widely used today for memorial monuments and tombs, particularly but not exclusively in Buddhist temples. A ''gorintō'' is for example the traditional headstone shape of a

sect grave.

Notes

References

The Sotoba (Gorintō, Stupa) Explained
Home Study Course on Basic Buddhism accessed on April 6, 2008 * Iwanami Japanese dictionary, 6th Edition (2008), DVD version {{DEFAULTSORT:Gorinto Cemeteries in Japan * Buddhism in Japan