Where exactly is the "center" of Kyoto?
Some might think the Kyoto Imperial Palace, even though it's been vacant since the Emperor moved from Kyoto to Tokyo about 150 years ago. The Kyoto prefectural and municipal government offices cannot be the center of gravity that replaces the Imperial palace.
Since the age of emperors in Kyoto, the actual center has been the "navel stone" housed at the hexagonal Rokkakudo temple.
Kyoto is a designed city, with the daidairi palace -- where emperors carried out their duties -- located north of Heiankyo, the predecessor city to Kyoto. Heiankyo was constructed to be the new capital city in 794 in an area that extended southward from the palace, with the Suzaku-oji street as the central axis.
The 84-meter-wide avenue played an important role as the site of state ceremonies, rather than an only street.
The Imperial residence -- called dairi -- was located in daidairi and was the political epicenter. The dairi was a sacred place that one could not enter without a special reason, and thus was not accessible to ordinary people. As such, Suzaku-oji was the public's viewing central ground for Imperial matters.
The western half of Heiankyo, however, waned in prosperity, which made Suzaku-oji an inactive void on the city's periphery. From around that time, the name Kyoto came to be used instead of Heiankyo.
The dairi experienced a series of fires and was never rebuilt, leading the emperor to move into a home owned by his wife's aristocratic family. Successive emperors would later move into a number of temporary residences before settling down in what is the now Kyoto Imperial Palace. At the time, however, emperors likely believed the palace to be just another temporary location.
Around the same time, political power gradually moved from the court to the samurai, and the Imperial palace was no longer the center of politics.
Meanwhile, the eastern half of Heiankyo expanded to the north and east, and the medieval era started.
The Chohoji temple was located in the center of Kyoto at the time. Also known as Rokkakudo (literally "hall of six angles") because of the main hall's hexagon shape, the temple is home to the "navel stone."
In Paris, a plaque marking "point zero" is located in the square in front of the entrance to the towering Notre Dame Cathedral. The cathedral is an appropriate symbol for the city's center and can be seen from a distance.
Rokkakudo is estimated to have been built in the late 10th century and is therefore older than Notre Dame, of which construction began in the late 11th century. Nevertheless, Rokkakudo is so small that it's consumed in a valley of taller buildings.
The hexagon-shaped navel stone, which measures about 45 centimeters across, rests in front of the main hall. The stone does not have any function, but is said to be the foundation stone for the pillar of a building or the base of a lantern. For whatever reason, only the stone remains.
The stone has a hole in the middle and certainly resembles a navel. However, most visitors would likely not notice the stone if not for a sign indicating its presence.
The human navel is likewise unnoticeable, but the word is also used to figuratively connote the center of any given space. I suppose the word is used similarly in Western languages.
In fact, Rokkakudo has geographical advantages to attract people. After the Onin War, a civil war that raged from 1467 to 1477 during the Muromachi period (1336-1573), Rokkakudo became a meeting place for citizens who were rebuilding the city.
The citizens were able to organize and established autonomy for the town. When an uprising broke out, the temple became a base of riots.
I assume that when people saw the stone, they thought, "This is the center of Kyoto, and this is the navel stone."
The stone is neither divine or Buddhist in nature, but there are still people who offer money and press their hands together in prayer, as they would to a god or to Buddha.
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This column, which appears once a month, is about various aspects of the culture of Kyoto.
Mori was born and raised in Kyoto. He has 30 years of experience in reporting about Kyoto culture. He has extensively covered scholars of the New Kyoto school, the heads of tea ceremony and flower arrangement schools, as well as maiko in the Gion area of the city.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
