Tō

Pagodas in Japan are called tō (塔, lit. pagoda^?), sometimes buttō (仏塔, lit. Buddhist pagoda^?) or tōba (塔婆, lit. pagoda^?) and historically derive from the Chinese pagoda, itself an interpretation of the Indian stupa. Like the stupa, pagodas were originally used as reliquaries but in many cases they ended up losing this function. Pagodas are quintessentially Buddhist and an important component of Japanese Buddhist temple compounds but, because until the Kami and Buddhas Separation Act of 1868, a Shinto shrine was normally also a Buddhist temple and vice versa, they are not rare at shrines either. The famous Itsukushima Shrine, for example, has one.

After the Meiji Restoration the word tō, once used exclusively in a religious context, came to mean also "tower" in the western sense, as for example in Eiffel tower (エッフェル塔, Efferu-tō^?).

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