Songyue Temple Pagoda

The Songyue Temple Pagoda is a 15-storey dense-eave brick pagoda built in the Northern Wei Dynasty. It is located at the southern foot of Mount Song in Dengfeng County, Henan Province. It is the oldest surface structure that still exists in China. Its dodecagonal pagoda body is unprecedented in the history of Chinese and foreign architecture. This pagoda is divided into three parts: the pagoda body , the dense eaves and the pagoda top. The lower part of its body is simple and undecorated while the upper part has leaning columns and Buddhist niches as ornaments, which possess apparent decoration styles of the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The dense eaves extended from the pagoda body get smaller layer by layer , forming a mild and graceful contour curve. A delicate spire (the ornaments on the top of the pagoda) is installed at its top. The whole pagoda enjoys a grand shape and looks extremely tall and gorgeous against the lofty Mount Song.

The bottom f oor of the Songyue Temple Pagoda is divided into two parts. The walls of the lower part are plain and thick while the upper part is richly decorated. Each corner has an octagonal column made of bricks. The base of the column takes the shape of an inverted basin while its head is decorated with hanging lotus. A door is opened in each of the east, west, south and north walls of the pagoda’s bottom f oor. The upper parts of these doors are semicircular arches, with the flameshaped lines around them. On the top of the gate there are three lotuses, which look beautiful and graceful. The eight sides of the pagoda body which have no gates are respectively decorated with carved Buddhist niches. Each Buddhist niche has two long circular sunken parts at its foot, where small lion sculptures of dif ferent and vivid shapes are placed.

The Songyue Temple and Empress Dowager Hu

The Songyue Temple was built by Emperor Xuanwu of the Northern Wei Dynasty. At that time it was called “Xianju Temple”. After the death of Emperor Xuanwu, the young Emperor Xiaoming inherited the crown and Empress Dowager Hu attended to the state af fairs behind the curtain. Before long, the minister who schemed to monopolize the state power colluded with the chief eunuch to stage a coup d’état. Empress Dowager Hu was placed under house arrest and forbidden to meet her son. Several years later, the chief eunuch planning the coup d’état died and the minister taking the state power indulged himself in wine and women. Empress Dowager Hu secretly met Emperor Xiaoming and a group of ministers. She blamed them to their faces: “Y ou limited my freedom and forbad me to contact with the emperor . Is there any meaning for me to be the empress dowager? It is better to le t me become a nun in the Xianju Temple built by the dead emperor!” After saying that, she raised the knife and planned to cut her hair. The ministers and Emperor Xiaoming hurriedly stopped her . But Empress Dowager Hu was unwilling to give up and still wanted to b e the nun. In order to stop his mother , Emperor Xiaoming had to stay by Empress Dowager Hu that night. Several days passed and th e mother-son relationship was repaired. They worked together and got rid of the minister seizing the power. Empress Dowager Hu f nally returned to the political f eld of the Northern Wei Dynasty. And the Xianju Temple (whose name was turned into Songyue Temple in the f rst year of the Sui Dynasty) thus established its fame in the history.

hancheng

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