Stūpas known as the Hyakuman Tō From Japan, AD 764 or soon after

 

Height: 21.500 cm

Asia JA 1930.4-24.1;Asia JA 1892.12-12.1;Asia JA 1909.5-19.4,5,6;Asia JA 1931.2-17.1

Rooms 92-94: Japan

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A Queens Tour

Shōtoku

The Japanese Empress Shōtoku lived over 1200 years ago. She was a very religious Buddhist. She ordered her carpenters to make a million of these small wooden model stûpas like small memorial towers. Inside each one were paper strips with prayers of thanksgiving to the Buddha printed on them. She gave 100,000 stupas each to ten of her biggest monasteries.

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Shōtoku abdicated in favour of the Emperor Junnin in 758. However the two became strongly opposed because of the favour she showed to the Buddhist monk Dōkyō and she re-ascended the throne as Empress Kōken. She nominated Dōkyō as her successor, but he was banished from the court after her death. Later legislation made it impossible for a woman to occupy the throne, though two later rulers, Myoshō (r.1629-43) and Go-Sakuramachi (r.1762-71) were women.