The Tahoto (Many-Jeweled Pagoda)
The Many-Jeweled Pagoda (Tahoto) is very different from the Five-Tiered Pagoda that is also on the Ninnaji grounds, although it, too, serves as an important place of worship. While the Five-Tiered Pagoda commemorates the historical Buddha known in Japan as Shaka Nyorai (Shakyamuni Buddha), the Many-Jeweled Pagoda honors one of the Buddhas of the future, Taho Nyorai (Prabhūta-ratna). Five-tiered pagodas often have some historical relics of the Shaka Nyorai, such as bone fragments, interred underneath their base to invest them with the Buddha’s presence. As the Taho Nyorai has yet to appear on this earth, relics are not incorporated into the architecture of pagodas of this type. The building’s design emerges from a description in the Lotus Sutra of Taho Nyorai appearing before the historical Buddha and his followers in the shape of a pagoda. According to the sutra, the Taho Buddha lives in a far-away land called “Treasure Purity,” where he resides in a tower often referred to as the Jeweled Stupa. Taho Nyorai is particularly important to Shingon Buddhism, and accordingly the Many-Jeweled Pagoda is primarily associated with temples of the Shingon school.