The Daqin Pagoda () is a Buddhist

pagoda A pagoda is a tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Thailand, Cambodia, 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 some ...

in Zhouzhi County of

Xi'an Xi'an is the list of capitals in China, capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong plain, the city is the third-most populous city in Western China after Chongqing and Chengdu, as well as the most populou ...

(formerly

Chang'an Chang'an (; zh, t=長安, s=长安, p=Cháng'ān, first=t) is the traditional name of the city now named Xi'an and was the capital of several Chinese dynasties, ranging from 202 BCE to 907 CE. The site has been inhabited since Neolithic time ...

Shaanxi Shaanxi is a Provinces of China, province in north Northwestern China. It borders the province-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north; Shanxi and Henan to the east; Hubei, Chongqing, and Sichuan to the south; and Gansu and Ningxia to t ...

Province,Daqin Temple Pagoda at china.org.cn
/ref> China, located about two kilometres to the west of Louguantai temple. The pagoda has been claimed as a

Church of the East in China The Church of the East (also known as the Nestorian Church) was a Christian organization with a presence in China during two periods: first from the 7th through the 10th century in the Tang dynasty, when it was known as ''Jingjiao'' ( zh, t=景� ...

church from the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

but there has been no conclusive evidence of such a connection.Martin Palmer, The Jesus Sutras: Rediscovering the Lost Religion of Taoist Christianity, , 2001

Etymology

Daqin is the ancient Chinese name for the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

or, depending on context, the

Near East The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...

, especially

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

History

The Daqin Pagoda is first attested in 1065, when the Chinese poet Su Dongpo visited it and wrote a well-known poem about it, "Daqin Temple". His younger brother Su Zhe also wrote an "echoing" poem referring to the monks at the temple. An

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

severely damaged the pagoda in 1556 and it was finally abandoned. Due to the earthquake, many of the underground chambers of the complex are no longer reachable.

Features

The seven-storeyed octagonal brick pagoda is about 34 meters high (was thought to be 32 in the past). Each side of the first storey measures 4.3 meters.

Speculation about Christianity

The Daqin Pagoda was visited by

Assyrian Church of the East The Assyrian Church of the East (ACOE), sometimes called the Church of the East and officially known as the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East, is an Eastern Christianity, Eastern Syriac Christianity, Syriac Christian denomin ...

bishop Mar Awa Royel in 2012 as part of a follow-up visit to China in 2010, upon invitation from the Jingjiao Fellowship and director Mr. David Tam. In 2001 the pagoda was claimed by Martin Palmer, the translator of several popular books on

sinology Sinology, also referred to as China studies, is a subfield of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on China. It is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of the Chinese civilization p ...

, including Zhuangzi and ''

I Ching The ''I Ching'' or ''Yijing'' ( ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. The ''I Ching'' was originally a divination manual in ...

'', as a form of

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

from the Tang dynasty, in his controversial book ''The Jesus Sutras''. According to Palmer, the church and the monastery were built in 640 by early Church of the East missionaries. '' Daqin'' is the name for the

in the early Chinese-language documents of the 1st and 2nd centuries; by the mid-9th century it was also used to refer to the mission churches of the Syriac Christians. Supporters of Palmer's claims have drawn attention to details which suggest that the monastery was earlier a Christian church, including a supposed depiction of

Jonah Jonah the son of Amittai or Jonas ( , ) is a Jewish prophet from Gath-hepher in the Northern Kingdom of Israel around the 8th century BCE according to the Hebrew Bible. He is the central figure of the Book of Jonah, one of the minor proph ...

at the walls of

Nineveh Nineveh ( ; , ''URUNI.NU.A, Ninua''; , ''Nīnəwē''; , ''Nīnawā''; , ''Nīnwē''), was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul (itself built out of the Assyrian town of Mepsila) in northern ...

, a

nativity scene In the Christian tradition, a nativity scene (also known as a manger scene, crib, crèche ( or ), or in Italian ''presepio'' or ''presepe'', or Bethlehem) is the special exhibition, particularly during the Christmastide, Christmas season, of ar ...

(depiction of the birth of Jesus) and Syriac graffiti. The east-facing orientation of the complex is also advanced as evidence of its Christian origin since Chinese Daoist and Buddhist temple complexes face north or south. As a potential stimulus to the district's tourist trade, Palmer's claims have been given wide publicity by the local authorities but have also received approbation by Chinese academics. The exterior of the pagoda and its surroundings were featured in the first episode of the 2009 BBC program '' A History of Christianity''. The program also featured an interview with Palmer by the presenter Professor

Diarmaid MacCulloch Diarmaid Ninian John MacCulloch (; born 31 October 1951) is an English academic and historian, specialising in ecclesiastical history and the history of Christianity. Since 1995, he has been a fellow of St Cross College, Oxford; he was former ...

. Despite the publicity they have received, Palmer's claims are controversial, and have been dismissed by Michael Keevak, the author of ''The Story of a Stele'', and by David Wilmshurst, the author of ''The Martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East''.Keevak, ''The Story of a Stele'', 000; Wilmshurst, ''The Martyred Church'', 461 James Morris of the University of St. Andrews has stated of the pagoda that "until more detailed archaeological analysis of the site is undertaken ..we must be content in maintaining that there are no proven direct archaeological remains for the presence of Christianity during the ''Táng'' period."

References

Citations

Sources

* Keevak, Michael, ''The Story of a Stele: China's Nestorian Monument and Its Reception in the West, 1625-1916'' (Hong Kong, 2008). * Palmer, Martin, ''The Jesus Sutras: Discovering the Lost Scrolls of Taoist Christianity'' (New York, 2001). * Wilmshurst, David, ''The Martyred Church: A History of the Church of the East'' (London, 2011).

External links

Did Christianity Reach China In the First Century?
{{coord, 34, 03, 32, N, 108, 18, 27, E, region:CN-14_type:landmark_source:kolossus-dewiki, display=title Churches in Xi'an Pagodas in China Church of the East in Shaanxi 7th-century churches Tang dynasty architecture Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Shaanxi Zhouzhi County