JJRS > Volume 45 Issue 1 The Shōkokuji Pagoda: Building the Infrastructure of Buddhist Kingship in Medieval Japan

Stavros, Matthew, and Tomishima Yoshiyuki

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This article outlines the history of the Shōkokuji Pagoda and reflects on the building’s role in the remarkable career of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358–1408). A small yet critical body of documents from the late fourteenth century sheds light on a compelling set of details regarding the 109-meter-tall monument’s location, iconographic program, and ritual functions. The findings reveal a conscious impulse to mimic precedents set two centuries earlier by powerful ex-sovereigns of the Insei period (1180s–1280s). By building the Shōkokuji Pagoda, Yoshimitsu sought to create a context, both material and situational, within which the symbols and rituals of Buddhist kingship could be deployed to assert a status synonymous with dharma king. In doing so, he forged an anthropocosmic connection between himself and the divine, thereby perpetuating an architectural tradition that can be compared to the great HinduBuddhist kingdoms of Southeast Asia.