- Erected: 1522
- Japanese: 国王頌徳碑 (koku ou shou toku hi)
The kokuô shôtoku-hi (lit. "stele of poem of the king's virtue") is a stele erected in 1522 along with another stele, the Madama minato himon, just outside the Shureimon main gate of Shuri castle, the royal palace of the Ryûkyû Kingdom. Because of its location to the east of the stone gate to Sonohyan utaki, the shôtoku hi was also sometimes known as the "Ishijô no higashi no himon," or "Stele to the East of the Stone Gate."
The inscription, by Sengan, sixth abbot of Engaku-ji, praises King Shô Sei, who had the road paved running from the shrine at Bengadake, the highest point in Naha, to Shuri castle, and had pine trees planted all along its length. The inscription on one side of the stele is written in classical Chinese, and that on the other side in a combination of kanji and kana. The latter reads in part:
首里おきやかもいがなしの御代にみやこよりち金丸みこしみ玉のわたり申候時にたて申候ひのもん
Shuri okiyakamoi ganashi no miyo ni miyako yori chiganemaru mikoshi mitama no watari môshi sôrô toki ni tatemôshi sôrô hinomon
"Stele erected on the occasion of the dispatch from Miyako of a sword named 'Chiganemaru' and sacred beads during the reign of King Shô Shin."[1]
The stele is believed to have been erected in commemoration of that occasion. Other elements of the inscription include a proscription against self-immolation following the king's death.
The open area around the stele came to be known as Himun-nu-mo ("Hair of the Stele Inscription"), and beginning in 1935 it came to be the terminal of the Naha-Shuri bus line. The stele was destroyed in the 1945 Battle of Okinawa; a reconstruction stands to the east side of the Shureimon and Sonohyan utaki today, alongside a reconstruction of another stele known as Madama minato himon, also originally erected in that location the same year. Both have been reconstructed based on surviving portions of the original, and on other surviving stelae.
References
- Okinawa bijutsu zenshû 沖縄美術全集. vol. 4. Okinawa Times, 1989. Description of Plates 81-82.
- Plaques on-site.[1]
- ↑ Text, romanization, and translation from Okinawa bijutsu zenshû.
