During the Great Edo Fire, Great Kanto Earthquake, and Tokyo bombings during World War II, no matter how many times the pagoda was destroyed, the symbol of Asakusa Temple was always rebuilt.
The top level of the pagoda holds some of Buddha’s ashes. In other words, it is a gravestone.
Asakusa temple was also repeatedly burned down, but similar to Kaminarimon and Takaragura, it was rebuilt through the donations of everyday people.
It is the same story for the five story pagoda. In the Meiji period in order to conduct a restoration of the pagoda, scaffolding was made around the tower. During that time the scaffolding was also used as an observation tower, where people could pay to see from the top. The collected money was then used for the restoration costs.
Now I wonder if you noticed the “Omikuji”, or fortune telling, which is located on the opposite side of the five story pagoda. The chance of drawing a unlucky fortune is around thirty percent, which has been the tradition for a long time. It is often thought that some temples are luckier than others, and this may be the case as many temples have decreased the chance of a drawing an unlucky fortune.
Now let's turn the page from the ancient practice of Japanese fortune telling.
