THREE PAGODAS

The 'Three Pagodas' are an ensemble of three independent Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) pagodas arranged on the corners of a symmetric triangle, near the town of Dali, Yunnan province, China.

Contents

Location

Description

History

See also

External links

Location

The Three Pagodas are located about 1.5 km (0.9) miles north of scenic Dali, Yunnan province. They are at the east foot of the tenth peak of the massive Cangshan Mountains and face the west shore of the Erhai Lake of the ancient Dali town.

Description

The Three Pagodas are made of brick and covered with white mud. As its name implies, the Three Pagodas comprise three independent pagodas forming a symmetric triangle. The elegant, balanced and stately style is unique in China’s ancient Buddhist architectures, which makes it a must-see in the tour of Dali. The Three Pagodas, visible from miles away, has been a landmark of Dali City and selected as a national treasure meriting preservation in China.



The main pagoda, known as Qianxun Pagoda (pinyin ''Qian Xun Ta''), reportedly built during 824-840 AD during the Tang Dynasty, is 69.13 meters (230 feet) high and is one of the highest pagodas in China’s history. The tallest pagoda from China's pre-modern age is the Liaodi Pagoda, built in 1055 during the Song Dynasty, and reaching a height of 84 m (275 ft) tall. The pagoda is square shaped and composed of sixteen stories; each story has multiple tiers of upturned eaves. There is a carved shrine containing a white marble sitting Buddha statue at the center of each façade of every story. The body of the pagoda is hollow from the first to the eighth story, surrounded with 3.3 meters (10 feet) thick walls. In 1978, more than 700 Buddhist antiques, including sculptures made of gold, silver, wood or crystal and documents, were found in the body during a major repairing work. The designers of the pagoda are supposed to have come from Xi’an, the capital of Tang Dynasty at that time and the location of another pagoda, Giant Wild Goose Pagoda, which shares the similar style but is two hundred years older.
The other two sibling pagodas, built about one hundred years later, stand to the northwest and southwest of Qianxun Pagoda. They are 42.19 meters (140 feet) high. Different from Qianxun Pagoda, they are solid and octagonal with ten stories. The center of each side of every story is decorated with a shrine containing a Buddha statue.

There is a lake behind it. Named （聚影池) ''Juying Chi'' (Reflection lake), the lake is known to be able to relfect images of the Three Pagodas.

History

The Three Pagodas are well known for their resilience; they have endured several man-made and natural catastrophes over more than a thousand years. Their mother building was known as Chongsheng Monastery (pinyin ''Chong Sheng Si'', also known as ''SanTa Si'', ''Tianlong Si'') and used to be the royal temple of the Kingdom of Dali and one of the largest Buddhist centers in southeast Asia. It was originally built at the same time as the first pagoda but was destroyed in a fire in the Qing Dynasty reign period. The temple was later rebuilt in 2005. It was recorded that Qianxun Pagoda had been split in an earthquake on May 6th, 1515 AD (Ming Dynasty). However, it miraculously recovered ten days later in an aftershock. The most recent record of severe earthquake in the Dali area occurred in 1925. Only one in a hundred of the buildings in Dali survived, but the Three Pagodas were undamaged.

See also

★ List of Buddhist temples

★ Chinese architecture

★ Architecture of the Song Dynasty

External links

★ Three Pagodas in Google Search