Three Pagodas of Chong Sheng Temple

Chongsheng temple was first built in the Fengyou reign of Nanzhao (824-859 A.D.). The big tower was built first, and the small towers in the north and South were built later. There was a tower in the temple, so the tower was named after the temple. The magnificent temple of the temple was destroyed in the Xiantong period, and only the three pagodas remained intact. Chongsheng temple is famous for the Three Pagodas in the temple, also known as "Dali Three Pagodas". It is one of the famous pagodas in China. The three pagodas are composed of one big, two small and three pagodas. They stand in a state of confrontation. From a distance, they are magnificent and magnificent. They are one of the scenic spots of canger.

Three Pagodas of Chong Sheng Temple

The Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple are located 1.5km northwest of Dali ancient city, facing yingle peak of Cangshan Mountain in the West and Erhai Lake in the East, about 1500m away from the foot of the mountain. The Taoxi river flows eastward 336 meters to the south. Meixi is 76 meters to the north and Yunnan Tibet highway to the East. The three towers are composed of one big, two small and three pavilions. The pagoda, also known as Qianxun pagoda, is called "Wenbi pagoda" by local people. It is 69.13 meters high and 9.9 meters square at the bottom. It is a typical dense eaves hollow square brick Pagoda in Dali area. The north and South towers are of 10 levels, 42.17 meters high, and are octagonal hollow brick towers with dense eaves. The three towers stand in the balance, the Qianxun tower is in the middle, and the two small towers are in the north and south. On March 4, 1961, it was announced as the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units by the State Council

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Historical evolution

The Three Pagodas of Chongsheng temple were built in the period of emperor quanfengyou of Nanzhao (824-859 A.D.). The Qianxun pagoda, a large pagoda, with a height of 69.13 meters, is a square brick Pagoda with dense eaves and a total of 16 floors. Later, the South and North towers were built, with a height of 42.19 meters. They are a pair of octagonal brick towers, both of 10 levels. In addition to the Buddhists' belief that the three pagodas can become Buddhists, there is also an important reason for the construction of the three pagodas. It is recorded in the ancient book Jinshi cuibian: "it is said that the dragon's nature worships the pagoda and fears the Peng. Dali used to be Longze, so it is Zhenzhi." It is said that in ancient times, when building three towers, one layer of soil was used to build one layer of tower. After the tower was repaired, the soil was dug out layer by layer to make the tower appear. Therefore, there are the theories of "piling civil construction tower" and "digging soil to build tower". When the tower was built, the bridge was as high as a hill and as long as 10 Li. When the pagoda was built, the transportation capacity was insufficient, and goats were used to carry bricks. Today, Yinqiao village in Dali was called "taqiao village" in ancient times. According to ancient books, the construction of the three pagodas took eight years to complete. After the construction of the three pagodas, a large Chongsheng temple was built.

The specific dates of the three pagodas have always been recorded differently. They are: ① built by Yuchi Jingde in Tang Zhenguan (627-649); ② built by Gongtao and Huiyi in the first year of Kaiyuan (713); ③ built by Li Xianzhe, a holy monk from the 10th year of emperor jianfengyou Baohe to the 1st year of Tianqi (833-840); ④ built by Li Xianzhe from the 10th year of Baohe to the 9th year of Tianqi (833-840) 33 to 848). According to the architectural age of similar ancient pagodas in the mainland, Yunnan should be later, and then compared with the relevant cultural relics and records in the original Chongsheng temple and the middle pagoda, it seems that the middle pagoda should have been built in the reign of Nanzhao king quanfengyou (824-859), while the two small pagodas were later than the middle pagoda, at the latest. It was built in the early days of Dali, that is, the middle tower was built first, and then two small towers were added

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According to Nanzhao unofficial history (Huben, Wangben), baigutongji and other historical records, when Chongsheng temple and the main tower were built, the base of the temple was 7 Li, the sage Li Chengmei built three towers, the house was 890, the Buddha was 11400, the copper was 40590 Jin, the labor cost was more than 708000, and the cost of gold, silver, cloth, silk, silk, damask was 43514 Jin

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During the reign of emperor Wuzong of the Yuan Dynasty, he was granted the imperial edict to release Jue Xing as the abbot monk to protect the temple property and exempt from food tax. In the Yuan Dynasty, it was also repaired, so that "the hall and veranda were rejuvenated, the three towers stood upright, the splendor of the golden and blue, and the Juli and Shanlong (equal)".

In the Ming Dynasty, Li Yuanyang rebuilt "three pavilions, seven floors, nine halls and one hundred Mansions". At that time, there were five treasures in the temple: Three Pagodas, giant bells, rain bronze Avalokitesvara, preaching song stele and Buddha plaque.

When Xu Xiake arrived in Dali, he still saw "three towers standing in front of Chongsheng temple, and all sides of Nuo are tall and pine towering.". In the west, there is a bell tower opposite to the three pagodas, which is very majestic. "Behind the building is the main hall, and behind the main hall is" Yuzhu Guanyin hall, which is a standing statue made of cast copper, three Zhang high "(Xu Xiake's travels to Yunnan diary 8). It is said that the Hongzhong in the temple was built in the 12th year of Jianji (871 A.D.) "its diameter can be more than Zhang, and its thickness can be as thick as feet", and its sound can be 80 Li.

In 1514 A.D., the Qianxun pagoda "cracked two feet and was shaped like a broken bamboo", and then "compounded in ten days".

In the 1925 earthquake, the top of the tower fell, and the damage became more and more serious. After the founding of the people's Republic of China, the government attached great importance to the protection of the three towers and carried out large-scale maintenance in 1978

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building structure

Chihiro tower

Qianxun pagoda is located about 300 meters in front of Chongsheng temple, with a square hollow plane and a 16 storey brick Pagoda with dense eaves. The height of the tower is 59.4 meters (from the base to the top of the tower). The height of the two-layer platform is 3 meters, with a total height of 62.4 meters, including the height of tashatong 69.13 meters. Its outline is dignified and elegant, and its appearance is similar to that of Xiaoyan Pagoda in Xi'an, Yongtai Pagoda in Dengfeng and Baima Pagoda in Luoyang.

Tower base

The depth of the foundation is 2.35m from the base to the upper platform and 4.55m to tahingdi. The bottom area of the foundation is about 190 square meters, which is more than twice the cross-sectional area of the tower. The red clay foundation is tamped, about 1.4 meters deep, with a layer of river pebbles on it, 30 cm thick. The platform is closed after seven layers of full brick foundation. The width is 2.04M, and the height is 2.35m. The upper platform is closed one level, and the width is 48CM, and the height is 4.24M. There is a round hole of 2cm in diameter and 1.34m in depth on the laterite foundation in the center of the tower, which is the positioning mark of the tower.

The Qianxun tower is located on the alluvial plain of Erhai Lake. There is no pile hole in the foundation. The weight of the tower is more than 8000 tons. It still stands tall after several strong earthquakes for more than 1000 years. The foundation treatment is successful.

The upper platform is 1.85 meters high and 21 meters wide. Brick masonry, Guijiao, Fang with bluestone, the rest of the brick. Waist hidden ask column, a door teeth. The pressure stone is irregular, 55 cm wide and 15 cm thick. No fence and pillar. The three layers of bricks on the table are laid crosswise and obliquely. The lower platform foundation is higher in front and lower in back. In the period of Chenghua of Ming Dynasty, bluestone fence and pillar were added. The breast board is 80 cm high and 120-150 cm wide. It is hollowed out in the middle to make patterns. The carving is rough and there is no ground to lay or search for sticks. The pillar is 1.2 meters high, with a lion sitting on the head of the pillar on the four corners, and peach shaped carvings on the rest. In front of the tower stands an additional stone screen built in the Ming Dynasty, 8.23 meters long, 1.1 meters thick and 4 meters high. The front is engraved with "Yongzhen mountains and rivers", with five stone steps on both sides of the screen wall, 1.5 meters wide.

Tower body

The tower is 9.85 meters wide, about 1 / 6 of its height. The height of the first floor is 12.04 meters, and the height of the second floor is only 66 ~ 110 cm. According to Li Yuanyang's inscription (embedded in the South Tower of Chongsheng Temple), "during the Ming Dynasty, there was a great earthquake in the Bundesliga garrison, and the battlements and houses were destroyed. Only three of them were intact. However, they had been demolished, and their descendants were increasingly torn down. On June 6, Jiajing's Geng garrison, Yu naibu's Jia pagoda was rebuilt with wooden bones. After 100 years of completion, Kui Chou began to repair the left and right pagodas again. In the early autumn, it began to repair the left and right pagodas. The 2-8 storey tower is 10.35 meters wide. It is 25 cm larger than the first layer. There is one layer of facing brick for 2-14 layers of tower body (excluding tower eaves). First, the flat base is built from the connection between the lower part of the tower body and the tower eaves, and then the brick is wrapped around the tower body, with water chestnut teeth on the top, with a height of 70-120 cm. The facing brick is 44 × 20 × 5.5cm, smooth and smooth without grain mark, and cemented with lime slurry. According to Li Yuanyang's record of "mending the stool and the pagoda", it should be the reason why the face bricks were subsidized in Ming Dynasty, or it was related to earthquake resistance and reinforcement. In the ninth year of Zhengde (1514 AD), Dali "suffered a great earthquake. All the walls and houses in the city fell down, and the tower cracked two feet. People said that the tower would compound in ten days." Coincidentally, the Chenghua earthquake at the Xiaoyan Pagoda in Xi'an "cracked and compounded". However, the crack of Qianxun tower is not compound. The width of the crack is more than 10 cm. It runs through the center of the tower from left to right. Due to appearance factors, 1, 15 and 16 were not bonded during reinforcement. After pasting the brick layer, the middle waist of the tower is strong, and the outline of the tower is parabolic, thick and solid.

Before the renovation of the tower gate and the first floor of the tower core, pebbles and broken bricks were filled and sealed, and the inscription of the 19th year of Guangxu in Qing Dynasty was embedded outside. "Self built Fu Tu Jing, rebuilt Pagoda in Five Dynasties, and proved three times." On the upper part of the first floor of the tower, there are stone tablets on the East, South and north sides. It is 3.6 meters high, with five seated Buddhas engraved on its forehead, lotus carved on its seat and Sanskrit scriptures inscribed on its surface. Most of them are weathered and denuded. However, a 170 × 110 cm "window" is left in the West. The doors and windows of the pagoda were flat topped wooden lintels, which were destroyed by fire in the late Qing Dynasty. They were unable to be overhauled during the reign of Guangxu, so they were blocked and abandoned.

In the middle of the eaves of each floor from the 2nd floor to the 15th floor, the holes and niches are staggered in the north-south and east-west directions. The size of the tower decreases from bottom to top, with two layers of 88 × 62 cm and 15 layers of 66 × 47 cm. The cave passes through the heart of the pagoda, and the niche is 27-71 cm deep. The original bronze statues have long disappeared. Most of the existing stone Buddha statues are works of the Ming Dynasty. Two meters on both sides of the cave niche, a single-layer tower niche, a rosette, overlapping eaves and veranda tile roof are built. A piece of white jade Sanskrit Sutra is embedded in the niche. The top layer is solid with niches but no holes

Tower eaves structure, first from the wall layer, on a layer of water chestnut teeth, and then

Chinese PinYin : Chong Sheng Si San Ta