To-ji Temple

This guide to To-ji Temple in Kyoto follows the tallest wooden pagoda in Japan through five fires and as many rebuildings, tracing back to the monk Kukai, later honored as Kobo Daishi, who took charge of the temple in 823 to build headquarters for a new, ritual-heavy school of Buddhism, filling its hall with statues arranged like a diagram of the universe. It follows the pagoda's destruction through war and lightning to its reconstruction under the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu in 1644. Look up at the dark timber before stepping toward the hall behind it.