The Liaodi Pagoda () of Kaiyuan Monastery,

Dingzhou Dingzhou, or Tingchow in Postal Map Romanization, and formerly called Ding County or Dingxian, is a county-level city in the prefecture-level city of Baoding, Hebei Province. As of 2009, Dingzhou had a population of 1.2 million. Dingzhou has 3 ...

Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, and ...

Province,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

is the tallest existing pre-modern

Chinese pagoda A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist but sometimes Taoist, ...

and tallest

brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

pagoda in the world, built in the 11th century during the

Song dynasty The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the res ...

(960–1279). The

pagoda A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist but sometimes Taoist, ...

stands at a height of , resting on a large platform with an

octagon In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, w ...

al base. Upon completion in 1055, the Liaodi Pagoda surpassed the height of China's previously tallest pagoda still standing, the central pagoda of the

Three Pagodas The Three Pagodas of the Chongsheng Temple () are an ensemble of three independent pagodas arranged on the corners of an equilateral triangle, near the old town of Dali, Yunnan province, China, dating from the time of the Kingdom of Nanzhao an ...

, which stands at 69.13 m (230 ft). The tallest pagoda in pre-modern Chinese history was a -tall wooden pagoda tower in

Chang'an Chang'an (; ) is the traditional name of Xi'an. The site had been settled since Neolithic times, during which the Yangshao culture was established in Banpo, in the city's suburbs. Furthermore, in the northern vicinity of modern Xi'an, Qin ...

built in 611 by

Emperor Yang of Sui Emperor Yang of Sui (隋煬帝, 569 – 11 April 618), personal name Yang Guang (), alternative name Ying (), Xianbei name Amo (), also known as Emperor Ming of Sui () during the brief reign of his grandson Yang Tong, was the second emperor ...

, yet this structure no longer stands. It is considered one of the Four Treasures of Hebei.

History

Construction on this stone and brick pagoda began in the year 1001 AD during the reign of

Emperor Zhenzong of Song Emperor Zhenzong of Song (23 December 968 – 23 March 1022), personal name Zhao Heng, was the third emperor of the Song dynasty of China. He reigned from 997 to his death in 1022. His personal name was originally Zhao Dechang, but was changed ...

, and was completed in 1055 AD during the reign of

Emperor Renzong of Song Emperor Renzong of Song (30 May 1010 – 30 April 1063), personal name Zhao Zhen, was the fourth emperor of the Song dynasty of China. He reigned for about 41 years from 1022 to his death in 1063, and was the longest reigning Song dynasty empe ...

. Emperor Zhenzong intended to have

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

scriptures Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They differ from literature by being a compilation or discussion of beliefs, mythologies, ritual pra ...

gathered by the Chinese monk Huineng from

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

stored at the pagoda's site. Due to its location at a strategic military location, the height of the pagoda made it useful as a

watchtower A watchtower or watch tower is a type of fortification used in many parts of the world. It differs from a regular tower in that its primary use is military and from a turret in that it is usually a freestanding structure. Its main purpose is to ...

, which could be used to spot enemy movements coming from the northern

Liao dynasty The Liao dynasty (; Khitan: ''Mos Jælud''; ), also known as the Khitan Empire (Khitan: ''Mos diau-d kitai huldʒi gur''), officially the Great Liao (), was an imperial dynasty of China that existed between 916 and 1125, ruled by the Yelü ...

headed by the Song's Khitan rivals. Initially the pagoda was called the Kaiyuan Pagoda, but as a result of its military use it became known as the 'Liaodi' pagoda, literally meaning 'foreseeing the enemy's intentions.' Dingzhou Liaodi Pagoda 5

Another pagoda of similar height and design is the Chongwen Pagoda of

Shaanxi Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see § Name) is a landlocked province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichuan (SW), Gansu (W), N ...

Province. Completed in 1605 during the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

, the Chongwen Pagoda stands at a height of 79 m (259 ft), making it the second tallest pagoda built in pre-modern China.Xu (2007), 108.

Features

Each floor of the Liaodi Pagoda features gradually-tiered stone eaves, doors and windows (with false windows on four sides of the octagonal structure) while the first floor has an encircling

balcony A balcony (from it, balcone, "scaffold") is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade, usually above the ground floor. Types The traditional Maltese balcony ...

. A split section of the pagoda's walls are open so that the tower's interior may be viewed, along with the actual thickness of the walls. At the top of its

steeple In architecture, a steeple is a tall tower on a building, topped by a spire and often incorporating a belfry and other components. Steeples are very common on Christian churches and cathedrals and the use of the term generally connotes a religi ...

, the pagoda features a crowning

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires a ...

made of

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids suc ...

and

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in ...

. In the interior a large staircase with landings for each floor winds from the bottom all the way up to the top floor. Brick

bracket A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...

s are used to support the landings on each floor, while from the eighth story up there are no brackets supporting the vaulted ceiling. Within the pagoda is a large pillar in the shape of another pagoda, as seen from the inside and as viewed from the cut section. The painted

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spanis ...

s and stone

stele A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek language, Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ...

s with

Chinese calligraphy Chinese calligraphy is the writing of Chinese characters as an art form, combining purely visual art and interpretation of the literary meaning. This type of expression has been widely practiced in China and has been generally held in high este ...

in the pagoda are dated to the Song period when the pagoda was built.

Notes

References

*Benn, Charles (2002). ''China's Golden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . *Cai, Yanxin (2011)

010 010 may refer to: * 10 (number) * 8 (number) in octal numeral notation * Motorola 68010, a microprocessor released by Motorola in 1982 * 010, the telephone area code of Beijing * 010, the Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the R ...

''Chinese Architecture''. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press (first published by China Intercontinental Press). . *Steinhardt, Nancy Shatzman (1997). ''Liao Architecture''. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. *Xu Xiaoying, ed. ''Zhongguo Guta Zaoxing''. Beijing: Chinese Forest Press, 2007.

External links

Liaodi Pagoda at Kaiyuan Temple
{{coord, 38, 30, 37, N, 114, 59, 48, E, region:CN-13_type:landmark_source:kolossus-dewiki, display=title Buddhist temples in Hebei Pagodas in China Octagonal buildings in China Song dynasty architecture 11th-century Buddhist temples 11th-century establishments in China Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Hebei Dingzhou

History

Features

See also

Notes

References

External links