Classification of Chinese Pagodas

Pavilion tower can be regarded as a single-storey pavilion tower, the appearance of Chinese-style pavilions on the top plus Indian-style pagoda brake. The plane is square, hexagonal, octagonal, round and so on. Early pavilion-type pagodas were wooden structures, which were later replaced by brick structures. Initially, the tower was set up with a shrine for the statue of Buddha or the statue of the owner of the tomb, and then gradually developed into a monk's tomb tower. The famous ones are Shandong Lixing Si Men Pagoda, Changqing Lingyan Temple Hui Chong Pagoda, Sanzang Pagoda, Shanxi Wutai Mountain Foguang Temple Anshi Pagoda, Anyi Panchu Zenji Pagoda, Ming Hui Master Pagoda, Henan Dengfeng Huishan Temple Jingzang Zenji Pagoda, Anyang Xiuding Temple Pagoda, and so on.

The Pavilion Pagoda is simple in structure and easy to build. The Luoyang Garantine Records recorded that while the emperors built towers, they also talked about the construction of towers by commoners. Baima Temple in a record, (75 AD) "the collapse of the Ming emperor, up Gion in the mausoleum. Since then, the people's mound or made floating map." Gion is the temple, here is the meaning of the shrine, the mound on the floating map is this small pavilion-style tower.

In the Yungang Grottoes, most of the pavilion-type towers in the Northern Wei Dynasty are square, Chinese-style pavilions plus tower brakes. Dunhuang murals show pavilion towers from the Northern and Sui and Tang dynasties, which are wood-framed round, hexagonal or square pavilions with phoenix-wheeled pagodas. The Dunhuang mural pictured here is a round pavilion pagoda, from the Northern Wei dynasty, depicting the story of Sakyamuni sacrificing his life to feed a tiger, with a five-fold phallic wheel on a round, domed pagoda, and a brake lever crowned with a mani jewel; this pagoda retains a more exotic style. The pavilion style pagoda is derived from the pavilions in traditional Chinese architecture. After the introduction of Buddhism to China, in order to adapt to Chinese customs, the pavilion form was used as a monumental building to honor the Buddha. Pagoda can be enshrined in the tower, but also has the function of the distant view and even military lookout, such as Beijing Liangxiang Haotian Pagoda.

Cabinet-style tower modeling is characterized by a pedestal, pedestal, wood or masonry structure on a multi-storey tower imitation wood structure, beams, square, columns, arches and other components are complete. Plane to square, octagonal or hexagonal as much, the tower top was save pointed, tower brake parts to cover the bowl of good phase wheel is mainly, but the shape of a variety of systems. Some of the tower in the first floor of the pavilion-style corridor ("vice step"), strengthening the stability of the upper part, but also effectively prevent the foundation from being washed by rain, improving the life of the tower.

The pavilion tower is the mainstream of the development of China's tower, mostly found in the vast area south of the Yangtze River, relatively few in the north. Famous such as Shanxi Yingxian Wooden Pagoda, Xi'an Big Wild Goose Pagoda, Kaifeng Iron Pagoda, Dingzhou Material Enemy Pagoda, Fujian Quanzhou Kaiyuan Temple Twin Stone Pagoda and so on. The Vajra Throne Pagoda originated in India, symbolizing the worship of the Tantric Vajra Realm Buddha. According to Buddhist scriptures, there are five divisions of the Vajra Realm, each with a main Buddha, the Vajra Throne represents the altar of the gods, and the five towers represent the five Buddhas.

The earliest Vajra Throne Pagoda is the Bodhgaya Pagoda in southern Bihar, India, which is said to be the place where Siddhartha Gautama became a Buddhist monk, and the pagoda was constructed in about the fifth century, and was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt. Existing for the nineteenth century reconstruction of the vajra throne style tower, the main tower is about 50 meters high, four corners of the four small towers similar to the big tower.

China's earliest vajra throne tower modeling appeared in Dunhuang Northern Zhou caves murals, as well as Shanxi Shuo County, Chongfu Temple Northern Wei stone carvings. The earliest surviving architectural object is the Zhenjue Temple Pagoda in Beijing during the Ming Dynasty. Famous also Biyun Temple in Beijing, Beijing Xihuang Temple Qing purification domain tower, Hohhot Cideng Temple Shariputra, Hubei Xiangyang "Duo Bao Buddha Pagoda" and so on. Dense-eaved pagoda developed from the pavilion type pagoda. Wooden pavilion type tower in the process of transformation into masonry tower, to two directions, one is masonry imitation wood pavilion type tower, one is a dense eaves tower. Dense eaves tower is characterized by:

First of all, the first layer of the tower body is particularly large in proportion, is the focus of all the tower body, richly decorated. Mostly decorated with niches, statues, doors, windows, arches and so on, Buddhist content and artistic techniques are concentrated here. Secondly, a layer of the tower above the body, the tower eaves are closely linked, overlapping layers, the distance between the layers is short, there is no door, window, columns and other building structures. Early also set up small windows, later gradually disappeared. If you need light and ventilation, between the eaves and eaves to open a small cavity, but with the internal floor does not matter. Finally, most of the dense eaves tower can not be climbed. Early dense eaves tower even if there is a staircase, but not for the tower to look out of the use. Liao Jin period of dense eaves tower is mostly solid, can not be climbed at all.

Early tower is simple, the tower body decoration is simple, the eaves with stacked. Because of the masonry bending, shear resistance is very poor, so out of the short eaves, eaves without imitation arch, purlin, tile ridge and other components. The famous ones are Dengfeng Songyue Temple Pagoda in Henan Province, Xi'an Small Wild Goose Pagoda, Dali Thousand Pagodas in Yunnan Province and so on. The Liao and Jin dynasties of the dense eaves of the tower has been greatly developed, in North China and Northeast China to form a special style: solid tower, the tower bottom increase tall Sumeru seat, a layer of the tower body is richly decorated, the layers of the dense eaves to increase the arch, rafters, tiles, such as ridge imitation wood components. Dense eaves tower to reach a peak of complexity and splendor, this tower in the north has been continued until after the Ming Dynasty is still being built. The famous ones are Beijing Tianning Temple Pagoda, Tongxian Burning Dawn Pagoda, Hebei Changli Source Shadow Pagoda, Zhengding Linji Temple Pagoda, Liaoning Jinzhou Guangji Temple Pagoda and so on. Rustling came to China and was combined with pavilions to create towers with a Chinese style, and the original image faded in turn. In the Yuan Dynasty, Rustling was once again introduced to the mainland from Nepal and combined with Tibetan Buddhism to create a unique form of ancient pagoda called the Overlay Pagoda, or Lama Pagoda.

The basic structure of the pagoda consists of four parts, from bottom to top are the base, the body, the phase wheel and the pagoda brake. The base has square, octagonal, polygonal, rare round; tower body is also known as the tower stomach or mantle, as the name suggests, such as inverted mantle, mantle basically maintains the appearance of the burial mound; tower neck is also known as the phase of the wheel, up to thirteen layers, so it is also known as the "thirteen heavenly"; tower brake is composed of umbrella cover and the treasure brake.

The mantle tower from the Northern Wei Yungang Grottoes reliefs and Dunhuang murals can be seen. But only after the Yuan a large number of construction, one of the earliest surviving large lama tower is the White Pagoda of the Myo Ying Temple in Beijing, Nepalese master craftsman Anigo designed and presided over the construction. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Lama Tower continued to develop, and became the main form of tomb towers after the death of monks, monks, lamas, commonly known as the monk's grave. Famous Lama Pagodas also include the White Pagoda of Tanyuan Temple in Wutai Mountain, the White Pagoda of Qiongdao in Beihai, Beijing, and the White Pagoda of Lianxis Temple in Slim West Lake, Yangzhou, and so on. Some of the vajra throne tower and the upper part of the tower across the street small tower also adopts this form. Sutra Block Tower is a tower that imitates the Buddhist treasure block. "Block" is the temple in the octagonal column-shaped apparatus, on the sagging silk and embroidered with Buddhist scriptures or the name of the Buddha, after the durable transformation into stone, the block engraved with "Buddhist scriptures Zongsheng dharani sutra" or the name of the giver. The tower in the Tang Dynasty, the Liao Dynasty prevailed, continued into the Qing Dynasty, some of them for the tower, some for the tomb tower.

The second half of the seventh century A.D. with the Tantric Buddhism to the east, a new type of Buddhist architecture - sutra building, after the Middle Tang Dynasty, the Pure Land Sect also built sutra building, the number of gradual increase; of which Maitreya Buddha is mainly in front of the temple to build a sutra building, the Amitabha or Yakushi to two or four sutra building in front of the temple. At this time the shape of the scripture building not only gradually adopt multi-storey form, but also to the Sumeru seat and Yanglian to support the body, the carving is also becoming more and more gorgeous. After the Five Dynasties to the Northern Song Dynasty, the development of the building reached its peak. Existing Song dynasty blocks, Zhaoxian, Hebei Province, the largest block, and the image of gorgeous, beautifully carved, is a typical representative work. The basic feature of the flower tower is that half of the tower is decorated with a variety of complex flower decorations, looks like a huge bouquet of flowers, so it is called the flower tower. The content of the decoration ranges from simple to complex and colorful, with huge lotus petals, dense Buddhist niches, carved images of various Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, heavenly kings and goddesses, gods, animal figures and so on, which are used to express the Lotus Hidden World in Buddhism. Some of the flower pagodas were originally painted in various colors and were richly decorated.

Examined from the existing flower tower objects, early flower tower from the top of the decorative single-story pavilion tower and the pavilion type, dense eaves type tower body development. Shanxi Wutai Buddhist temple of the Tang dynasty to relieve the Zen master's tomb tower, the top decorated with overlapping large lotus petals, can be said to open the tower of the precursor. Song, Liao, Jin period, the real formation of this type of flower tower. There are more than ten existing flower pagodas in the country, the famous ones are Beijing Fangshan Wanfotang Flower Pagoda, Hebei Zhengding Guanghui Temple Flower Pagoda, Quyang Xude Flower Pagoda, etc. After the Yuan Dynasty, the flower pagodas gradually became extinct. After the Yuan Dynasty, flower pagodas gradually became extinct, like a flash in the pan.

The North Pagoda of Yunju Temple in Fangshan, Beijing, also known as "Luohan Pagoda", is 30.46 meters high. Liao Tianqing years (1111-1120) built. Integration of pavilion type and mantle type as one of the tower of relics, brick structure. The lower part of the octagonal Sumeru seat, built on two floors of the pavilion, the top of the bowl and thirteen days.