pagoda

pagoda

Pagoda, also known as futu (transliteration of "Buddha" in Sanskrit) and "qudeng" in Tibetan.

Pagodas were originally used to offer relic, Scripture or Dharma objects.

Buddhism began to enter China in the first century A.D. and formed Chinese Buddhism through Sinicization. The style of pagoda also changed from burying pagoda to Pavilion pagoda and pavilion pagoda, and from Pavilion pagoda to close eaves pagoda. According to the building materials, traditional Chinese pagodas can be divided into wooden pagodas, stone pagodas and brick pagodas.

The origin of the name

When the pagoda was introduced into China, it was transliterated as "tapa", "fotu", "futu", "futu" and so on. Because the pagoda was used to collect Buddhist relics or to offer Buddhist statues and sutras, it was also translated as "fangfen" and "Yuanzhong". It was not until the Sui and Tang Dynasties that the name "tower" was used as a unified translation until the present age.

Types of pagodas

According to the hierarchy: 37 tower, 17 tower, 15 tower, 13 tower, 9 tower, 7 tower, 5 tower, 3 tower, etc.

According to the shape: square tower, round tower, hexagonal tower, octagonal tower, etc., there are also big tower, Duobao tower, Yuzhi tower, baoxiyin tower, Wulun tower, egg tower, seamless tower, Pavilion tower, close eaves tower, diamond throne tower, tomb tower, bantapa and jiaotapa.

According to the items collected, they can be divided into relic tower, FA tower, claw tower, tooth tower, Yi tower, Bo tower, Zhenshen tower, Huishen tower, suishen tower, pingta tower, Haihui tower, Sanjie Wanling tower, Yizi Yishi tower, pangta tower, etc.

According to the building materials: Brick Tower, stone tower, jade tower, sand tower, mud tower, Earth Tower, dung tower, iron tower, copper tower, gold tower, Silver Tower, crystal tower, glass tower, glass tower, pagoda, incense tower.

According to the nature of meaning: blessing tower, gratitude tower, Dharma tower, longevity tower.

According to the arrangement position of the tower, it can be divided into isolated tower, opposite vertical tower, row vertical tower, square vertical tower, arch vertical tower and discrete tower.

According to the style: covered bowl tower, niche tower, column tower, wild goose tower, house tower, no wall tower, Lama tower, etc.

history

Origin and development

According to Buddhist documents, Buddha Sakyamuni was cremated after nirvana to form a relic, which was collected by eight local kings and built towers for worship.

In addition, there are also eight monumental sites in Sakyamuni's life, such as lanbini garden at the place of his birth, nirian Chan River at Chengdao, Luye garden at the place of the first saying, Zhituo garden at the place of Anju, Qunu city of Sangjia corpse country at yulitianxia, wangshe city at the place of Huadu monk, piyeli city at the place of entering nirvana, and jishina city at the place of nirvana They are called Julian pagoda, Bodhi pagoda, auspicious pagoda, Shenbian pagoda, Tianjiang pagoda, Peace Pagoda, victory pagoda and nirvana pagoda, all of which are of commemorative significance.

The eight pagodas of Shanshi are built in Ta'er temple in Qinghai, and the eight pagodas of Tathagata in Potala Palace in Tibet. They are also built to commemorate the eight deeds of Sakyamuni Buddha.

During the reign of Ashoka in India, Buddhism was listed as the national religion, and the establishment of pagodas reached an unprecedented climax. Eighty four thousand pagodas were built in the small states under the command of the Peacock Dynasty. In this period, the pagodas were built.

There are two kinds of pagodas, the one with relic is called pagoda, and the one without relic is called caitya. The earliest existing pagoda was built in the period of Asoka.

Introduced into China

Buddhism was introduced into China in the first century A.D.

The pagoda has been transformed from the original covered bowl pagoda into the pavilion pagoda and pavilion pagoda, and from the pavilion pagoda comes the close eaves pagoda.

According to the records in the book of the post Han Dynasty, during the period of the late Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms, Zuo Rong, a man from Danyang, had "a great pagoda, a golden plate on the top, a heavy tower on the bottom, a pavilion on the back, which could accommodate more than 3000 people". These descriptions truly record the grandeur and magnificence of the pagoda architecture at that time.

There are many kinds of pagodas in China. In terms of materials, there are stone pagodas, wooden pagodas, brick pagodas, glass pagodas, etc. the height of pagodas ranges from a few inches to tens of feet. For example, the baoxiyin pagoda made by the king of Wu and Yue is no more than a few inches high. The Yongning Temple Pagoda built by Emperor Xianwen of Wei Dynasty is known as a hundred feet high pagoda, which is the highest Pagoda in China.

Generally speaking, regardless of the shape and size of the pagoda, its basic shape is composed of the base, the body and the temple.

The base of the tower is square, round and polygonal. The body of the tower is built up by steps and gradually folded up.

In China, if we talk about the number of towers, the diversity of their forms and the richness of their styles, we can say that they are also unique in the world. All kinds of towers with architectural beauty, together with mountains, rivers and villages, build a unique human and natural landscape of the Chinese nation.

Architectural features

Early pagodas

The early pagoda is a semicircular large earthen tomb, completely in the form of a tomb.

In the center of the tower is a square platform with three layers of umbrella cover. There is a base and fence at the bottom of the tower. There are steps up and down in front of the tower.

The outermost layer has a fence around the tower, and each side of the fence has a archway shaped tower gate.

In Java, Southeast Asia, about the second half of the eighth century, there appeared a talupo, which was built during the reign of the selindoro Dynasty in Sumatra at that time.

This Borobudur, from bottom to top, consists of: the first part, a huge square stone platform as the base of the tower, with a convex corner castle on it.

The second part is the five storey high altar on this platform, which is reduced layer by layer. On the walls of the upper and lower altars, there are a series of niches, in which there are the same number of Buddha statues. There are 36 of 400 wall emperors in the whole building of Borobudur, and the number of Buddha statues is the same.

In the third part, on the fifth floor of the high altar, there is a circular platform with three steps, surrounded by 72 bell shaped small stupas.

In the fourth part, in the center of the topmost layer, a hemispherical dome is built to block the wave itself.

This huge building shows the artistic talent of the Indonesian nation.

lamaist pagoda

Also known as Lama tower, it is commonly used in Tibetan Buddhism.

The body of this kind of pagoda is a semicircular cover, which is of course derived from the form of Indian pagoda.

There is a huge Tasha on the cover, and a tall xumizuo is built on the cover.

This kind of pagoda became popular in Yuan Dynasty and continued to develop in Ming and Qing Dynasties, which was related to the prevalence of Lamaism at that time.

In the Yuan Dynasty, there were two xumizuo floors, which were inherited in the Ming Dynasty, but the proportion increased. In the Qing Dynasty, most of them only had one xumizuo floor.

In Yuan Dynasty, the proportion of fat was short, while in Qing Dynasty, the proportion was thin and high.

Between the tower body and the base, lotus petals were used in the Yuan Dynasty, on which there were several layers of small lines, and lotus beads were sandwiched in the lines.

This system was still followed in Ming Dynasty. In the early Qing Dynasty, it was changed to three layers of Vajra instead of lotus petals. At the bottom of the top of the tower is the neck of the tower.

It was stronger in Yuan and Ming Dynasties and thinner in Qing Dynasty. Above it is thirteen days, which should be a variant of Xianglun, generally thirteen layers.

Yuan and Ming Dynasties were relatively short and fat, while Qing Dynasty was as thin as duo handle. On the corner is a disk, the yuan and Ming copper plates hang tassels, and the Qing Dynasty is a two-tier heaven and earth plate. The top is the Pearl and the copper tower. In Qing Dynasty, sun, moon and flame were used. Here's 108 tower to see its shape and characteristics: 108 tower is on the hillside to the east of the West Bank of Qingtongxia reservoir in Qingtongxia City, Ningxia. Originally, there were temples all over the place. Because of the inundation of the river, there was only tower forest, so it was named 108 tower according to the number of towers. According to the geometry, the pagoda is arranged in an isosceles triangle with a wide bottom and a sharp top. The highest end is the largest pagoda. The body of the pagoda is like a compound bowl. The top of the pagoda is a pearl. The base is an octagonal waist xumizuo. The top of the pagoda is 1.3.5 Odd arranged into 12 layers, each layer of the tower with a brick wall. The tower is divided into four types: the first layer is a compound bowl, the second, third and fourth layers are octagonal shaped, the fifth and sixth layers are gourd shaped, and the seventh and twelfth layers are bottle shaped. This 108 tower is the only large tower group with triangular overall layout in Chinese ancient tower architecture. According to the latest archaeological achievements, it was built in the Xixia period. Its shape is similar to the White Pagoda of Miaoying in Beijing. The structure and shape characteristics of the complex tower are inherited from the Buddhist Lama tower.

The famous ones are Beihai White Pagoda in Beijing, Tayuan Temple Dabai Pagoda in Wutai Mountain in Shanxi, and 108 Pagoda in Qingtongxia City in Ningxia.

pagoda of a multi-storied pavilion type

The form of pavilion type tower comes from the pavilion in traditional Chinese architecture. This kind of tower has a long history in ancient Chinese pagodas, with the highest shape and the largest number of preservation. In the early days, the Pavilion tower should be a wooden structure, because it is easy to be destroyed by fire, so the real object can not be preserved. The earliest Pavilion style pagodas are found in the carvings of Yungang and Dunhuang Grottoes in the northern and Southern Dynasties. After Sui and Tang Dynasties, brick and stone were often used as building materials, and the pavilion style tower with brick and stone imitating wood structure appeared. Their characteristics are: the distance between each floor is large, one floor of the tower is equivalent to one floor of the pavilion, the size and height of each floor are reduced from bottom to top, and the overall outline is conical. The plane of the Pavilion tower is square in Tang Dynasty, octagonal in song, Liao and Jin Dynasties, and hexagonal in Song Dynasty. Octagons and hexagons were still used in Ming and Qing Dynasties.

The structure of the tower in the Tang Dynasty is a single-layer tower wall, hollow, tube-shaped inside, with wooden stairs and floors. In song, Liao and Jin Dynasties, "brick columns" were built in the center of the tower. Between the column and the wall of the tower is the staircase or the outline inside the tower. A simple platform base was set at the bottom, which was not used before Song Dynasty. Each layer of the tower is built with columns, forehead, doors and windows. Square and octagonal columns were used in Tang Dynasty. In the Liao and Song Dynasties, columns were often used, and Pu Bai Fang was used above the forehead. Each layer of eaves is made of brick or stone, the style is simple

Chinese PinYin : Fo Ta