The , is a

Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from CE 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the cap ...

Buddhist relic located in the Dotō neighborhood of Naka-ku, in the city of

Sakai, Osaka is a city located in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. It has been one of the largest and most important seaports of Japan since the medieval era. Sakai is known for its keyhole-shaped burial mounds, or kofun, which date from the fifth century and inclu ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. It is also referred to as the after the temple on whose grounds it is located. It was designated as a National Historic Site in 1953, with the area under protection expanded in 2005.

Overview

According to the , a

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 bet ...

semi-apocryphal biography of

Gyōki was a Japanese Buddhist priest of the Nara period, born in Ōtori county, Kawachi Province (now Sakai, Osaka), the son of Koshi no Saichi. According to one theory, one of his ancestors was of Korean descent. Gyōki became a monk at Asuka-dera, ...

, the famed priest established the temple of Ōno-ji in 727 AD, and the ''Dotō'' was built per his instructions at that time. This earthen

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, circumamb ...

measures 53 meters on each side, with a height of approximately nine meters, and is orientated towards the four cardinal directions. It consists of 13 layers arranged like a

step pyramid A step pyramid or stepped pyramid is an architectural structure that uses flat platforms, or steps, receding from the ground up, to achieve a completed shape similar to a geometric pyramid. Step pyramids are structures which characterized several ...

constructed by stacking clay blocks side by side, and compacting with soil in the spaces in between. The exposed portion each layer was covered with clay

roof tile A roof ( : roofs or rooves) is the top covering of a building, including all materials and constructions necessary to support it on the walls of the building or on uprights, providing protection against rain, snow, sunlight, extremes of temper ...

s, totaling about 60,000 in all. Of the tiles excavated, some 1300 are inscribed with letters written using spatula-shaped tools. Most of the inscriptions are the names of people various social strata such as monks, gentry, and commoners, who are believed to have donated the tiles as votive offerings. Some of the tiles have the date Jinki 4, which corresponds to the year 727 AD, and thus providing corroboration for the story in the ''Gyōki Nenpu''. The temple of Ōno-ji was abandoned in the

Muromachi period The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by t ...

, but was later revived in the

Edo Period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

. Some of the artifacts recovered from the site (780 engraved roof tiles, 2 round eaves tiles, 4 examples of

Sue ware was a blue-gray form of stoneware pottery fired at high temperature, which was produced in Japan and southern Korea during the Kofun, Nara, and Heian periods of Japanese history. It was initially used for funerary and ritual objects, and origin ...

pottery and 2 coins) were collectively designated a National Important Cultural Property in 2016 and are kept at the Sakai City Museum. The site itself has been restored to what archaeologists and historians believe to have been its original appearance, and opened to the public as a park in 2009. A structure similar to the''Dotō'' is the '' Zutō'' in the Takabatake neighborhood of

Nara The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It i ...

city.

Gallery

大野寺跡（土塔）出土「神亀4年」銘軒丸瓦.JPG, Roof tile fragments with date File:Dotou, zenkei-2.jpg, view from southwest corner Doto002.jpg, View from above Oono-ji (Sakai), sanmon.jpg, Modern Ōno-ji 大野寺跡（土塔）出土品.JPG, Excavated items at Sakai City Museum

References

External links

Sakai city home page

{{in lang, ja Buddhist temples in Osaka Prefecture Sakai, Osaka Izumi Province Nara period Historic Sites of Japan Buddhist archaeological sites in Japan Pyramids in Japan Important Cultural Properties of Japan

Overview

Gallery

See also

References

External links