Why are many ancient pagodas in China built tall and narrow, with steep internal stairs? What's the point?

Morphological Analysis of China Ancient Pagoda

Traditional buildings in China pay attention to the combination of courtyards, and rarely develop into high altitude, only towers. The tall and straight posture of the tower plays a certain role in the outline of Buddhist temples and even the city, thus becoming a landmark building today. At the same time, the shape of most buildings in China has not changed much, but the towers can adopt various structures with changeable shapes, which is unique in the architectural history of China.

1 Introduction and Evolution of China Ancient Pagoda

1. 1 "retaining slope" to "tower"

"Pagoda" is the name of China people, and it is called "stupa" in India. Poe's original intention was to bury the king's body in the early days and then provide for the Buddha's relics (relics, Buddha's remains). [1] The slope is a three-dimensional building consisting of a base, a bowl, a treasure door and a phase wheel from bottom to top (see figure 1).

With the introduction of Buddhism into China at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, Chinese pagodas sprouted as early as the end of the 2nd century. [2] According to records, the earliest existing tower in China was built in the middle and late sixteenth century, but its size is only a few tens of centimeters, so it is not a real building, but its shape is closest to the Indian prototype. Its lower part is an octagonal column foundation, and the middle part is scattered into the main body. It is engraved with eight arch coupons, each with a Buddha in it, and the upper part of the tower is engraved with a lotus cover, a wheel and a canopy. Later, the dense eaves stupa evolved from the phase wheel of these small stone pagodas. [3]

China of 1.2 tower

However, after the tower entered China, it was integrated into the form of China architecture, creating a unique image of the tower in China. Although the stupa in China still retains the relics, the function, structure and form of the stupa, combined with the architectural tradition of China, have created a pavilion-like wooden pagoda, which not only worships the Buddha statue, but also makes people climb high and overlook. Reducing the original slope and putting it at the top of the tower is called "braking". In the process of nationalization, combining with the original architectural form of China and the aesthetic habits of China people, many shapes have been derived, but the most important ones are pavilion and dense eaves, as well as pavilion towers, Chinese wind towers and some composite towers. As for the combination of King Kong Throne Pagoda and other pagodas with Tibetan Buddhism and Hinayana Buddhism, it is their re-evolution. [4] So, when the Tower arrived in China, its meaning expanded. All buildings storing relics, Buddha statues, Buddhist scriptures or tombs of eminent monks generally have a concentrated plane and towering figure, and at the same time there is a set of "Tasha" decoration at the top, which can be called a tower. [5]

2 Analysis of structural materials and forms of China ancient pagoda

2. 1 wooden pavilion pavilion pagoda is an imitation of traditional multi-storey wooden buildings in China. It appeared earlier and was used the most in the past dynasties, which is the mainstream of Chinese pagodas. [6] According to records, such a tower was first seen in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, which was the product of the combination of slopes and existing wooden pavilions in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Although the Northern and Southern Dynasties were popular for a period of time, the number was also the largest, but they have not remained at present. The columns, beams and buckets of wooden structures are adopted in the tower, and they are retracted step by step. In terms of structure and appearance, it already belongs to China. The most typical example is the Sagata of Fogong Temple in Yingxian County, Shanxi Province in Liao Dynasty, which is the only oldest and most complete wooden pagoda in China (see Figure 2).

During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, although wood and masonry were still the main materials for building pagodas, the wooden pagodas were easily damaged and could not be preserved for a long time, so it was an inevitable trend to build pagodas with masonry instead of wood and imitate the form of wooden pagodas. As a result, the use of materials gradually changed from all-wood to brick-wood mixture and all-masonry, and all-wood pavilion towers disappeared from the Song Dynasty.

2.2 dense eaves masonry tower

As for the application of masonry structure, in addition to inheriting the tradition that it was mainly used for tombs in the Han Dynasty, the three countries have begun to use it for ground buildings, initially mostly for building stone chambers and pagodas, which laid the foundation for building pagodas with bricks after the Jin Dynasty. The earliest existing tower in China is the brick tower, which is the existing north.

The only ground building in Wei Dynasty and the only twelve-sided pagoda is the Song Yue Temple Pagoda in Dengfeng City, Henan Province (see Figure 3). The whole tower is made of gray-yellow bricks except for the stone gate. The bottom of the tower is higher than the tower body and consists of fifteen closely connected eaves. It is different from the pavilion-style wooden tower, and it is only used by worshippers, not for boarding and sightseeing. There is only a short section of the tower between the eaves of each floor, and there is a small window on each side, but most of them are window-shaped and do not use lighting. The overall outline of the whole tower is a parabola, which is very beautiful. Its appearance not only marks the important progress of brick building technology in China, but also shows that the construction of dense eaves tower in China has reached a mature level.

2.3 Masonry towers imitate wooden towers

However, due to the inertia of the highly developed wood structure in China, especially after the Southern Song Dynasty, even brick, stone and even iron-cast and pottery pagodas have imitated wooden pagodas everywhere, and finally failed to develop the tradition and style of masonry materials. The most typical example is the Double Stone Pagoda of Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou (see Figure 4), which was built in the first year of Shaoding in the Southern Song Dynasty (1228). It uses stones to imitate wooden components in detail, which is simply to use stones as wood. All the columns, buckets and rafters, as well as the roofs and tile heads, are carved out of stone. Designers are completely unaware of the different expressions of formal beauty in different materials, which makes the masonry stupa have no internal logical basis for expressing the modeling of wooden pagodas and have lost the meaning of imitation. Therefore, the aesthetic features and styles of masonry buildings have disappeared. So that all masonry pagodas and even temples will imitate wooden structures everywhere in the future, and it will become more and more serious, which will eventually interrupt the future and history of masonry development in China. I'm really sorry.

3 Buddhism and the influence of the golden mean

Buddhism came to China to publicize that life is alive, everything is bitter, and life is an endless sea of suffering; On the one hand, it depicts the happiness of the afterlife for people. Therefore, only by educating people to follow Buddhist teachings, cultivating their hearts and eliminating their desires can they enter nirvana and achieve positive results. "stupa" is used to bury "stupa". The tall and straight tower, against the background of China's traditional architecture, spreads to the plane, but it turns people's eyes to God, telling Buddhists' sincere desire to get rid of real suffering and yearn for happiness in heaven. However, most of the traditional buildings in China are plane groups.

Layout, rarely emphasizes single building, and even emphasizes towering buildings. This is not only because the ancient buildings in China are limited by the bearing capacity of civil structures, but also because of the influence of Confucianism. Therefore, traditional architecture emphasizes the unity and harmony of the group, and the single building is simple, accessible and even close to the ground. Finally, through the spreading of the horizontal plane, it sets off a grand and huge momentum and suppresses the volley of single buildings. Even these pagodas, which are going to develop at high altitude, use multiple horizontal lines to weaken their upward trend. So as to obtain a kind of "golden mean" beauty of vertical and horizontal composition on the facade. As shown in Figure 5, in China, whether it is the cornice pagoda, the pavilion pagoda, the Lama pagoda and the King Kong throne pagoda, they all emphasize the vertical composition while neutralizing and weakening it with a large number of horizontal lines, which embodies the psychological characteristics of China people's contradiction, complexity and compromise.

4 conclusion

In a word, Buddhism has developed greatly since it was introduced into China. Just as the combination of Buddhist teachings and China's traditional philosophy created China's Buddhist teachings, Buddhist architecture also created China's unique Buddhist architecture on the basis of China's traditional architecture. The only difference is that the pavilion tower greatly reduces the slope and is placed at the top of China Pavilion; On the other hand, the cornice tower exaggerates the phase wheel of retaining slope and transforms it into Chinese cornice. Both of them are the China-ization of Indian Gebu, which vividly reflects the vivid creation process of China ancient craftsmen while absorbing foreign culture without giving up nationalization.