S P O T ／ SPOT-251

Tower of Yao Bikuni (Kamo Shrine Stone Tiered Pagoda)

八百比丘尼の塔（賀茂神社石造層塔）やおびくにのとう（かもじんじゃせきぞうそうとう）

Beside the first torii in the grounds of Kamo Shrine in Tano, Susaki City, Kochi Prefecture, stands a granite tiered stone pagoda 4.3 meters tall, its base a 48 cm cube, with Sanskrit seed-syllables incised into all four faces of the core. The carving of the seed-syllables and the curve of the roofs date it to the late Kamakura period, and as the oldest — and only — stone tiered pagoda in Kochi Prefecture it was designated a Prefecture Protected Tangible Cultural Property in 2002. It now has twelve tiers, but is thought to have originally been thirteen, missing the topmost tier with its finial rings, lotus seat, inverted bowl, and base plate. Locally it is called the "Tower of Yao Bikuni" and tied to the legend of a nun who ate mermaid flesh and lived eight hundred years — though scholars consider the legend a later addition to the pagoda. Its appeal lies in the way a single stone tower carries both its original character as a Buddhist memorial pagoda and the folkloric imagination of an immortality legend.