Yingxian County Wooden Pagoda
6 min readYingxian County Wooden Pagoda, commonly known as Heaven’s Pillar or Sakya Pagodain Buddha Palace Temple, is an ancient high-storied wooden building that is most intact preserved, most intricate in structure and most grand in appearance.
Most pagodas built early in Chinese history are wooden ones.A great number of them have been burned into ashes due to natural and man-made calamities. How can Yingxian Wooden Pagoda stand still for almost a thousand years? This question has puzzled people of several generations. There are two major threats to wooden pagodas in history: one is earthquake and the other is lightning. According to historic records, Yingxian County Wooden Pagoda has suffered a lot of earthquakes. In the period of Emperor Shundi in the Yuan dynasty, this pagoda stood as steady as a rock in an earthquake that lasted for seven days in succession. What a miracle! In the Ming dynasty, an earthquake of magnitude 9 happened, leaving many houses collapsed and hundreds of people died. However, this pagoda still stood there, safe and sound.
In 1926, during the battles among warlords in Shanxi, this wooden pagoda was bombarded for about 200 times, leaving it all scratched up. Although a fire broke out after this pagoda had been bombarded for several times, it extinguished soon all by itself. What is more, lightning always struck around the pagoda in stormy days.
Simply in the 1950s, there were two lightning struck just about 100 meters away from it, but this pagoda was not influenced at all. Maybe it is because its magic fire-proofing, quake-resisting, thunder-arresting function and unique construction style.
However, people always tend to give the credit to Lu Ban-the legendary originator of architecture. There is an interesting story about it.
It is said that Yingzhou Prefecture was an important place contested by all strategists in history. Battles always happened there. The two belligerent parties would even fight with each other to a state of chaos and darkness and make everywhere rivers of blood. One day, Lu Ban happened to pass by this place with his younger sister. He decided to build a pagoda here to lessen the murderous look onthis land. But his sister was unhappy about this idea because she simply wanted t leave this place as soon as possible. So she asked him how long it would take to build a pagoda. Being afraid that his sister was not willing to wait, Lu Ban boasted that he could finish it just in one day. His sister was suspicious about it and asked,”How many layers will this pagoda consist of? Where do the building materials come from?”Lu Ban answered,”This pagoda will be made up of 12 stories and the pine trees in the northwest of Yingzhou Prefecture can be used.”His sister looked towards the pine trees. They were at least 30 li away. It would take at least a whole day just to move the woods, let alone to build a pagoda. But Lu Ban insisted that he could make it. So they made a bet. The sister said that she could embroider twelve pairs of shoes if he could finish building a twelve-storied pagoda in one night. They got to working separately afterwards.
During the night, Lu Ban chose a site for the pagoda and used theurgy to get the huge wood and stones. The stone was made as the base and wood as counter fort. The pagoda was already half done by midnight. However, his sister was so absorbed inlooking at the building of the pagoda that she totally forgot to embroider the shoes. When she remembered, she felt nervous at first, but came up with an idea soon. She shouted in imitation of the cockcrow and then called Seven Fairies to come down for help. She succeeded in embroidering the 12 pair of shoes before day break.
Lu Ban thought it was going to be dawn on hearing the cockcrow. But only six stories were finished and the pine trees had been used up at that time. He had no other ways but to invite bricklayers in the heaven to join in. Therefore, the pagoda we see now is a composite structure of wood and brick at the stories above the sixth one. Thanks to the help of the bricklayers,a twelve-storied pagoda was finished before dawn. His sister and Seven Fairies were filled with wonder at the sight of this grand, majestic pagoda. In order to prevent it from the damage of fire and flood, Lu Ban went to Heavenly Palace and borrowed the water-and fire-prevent pearls from Jade Emperor (Supreme Deity). With the help of these two pearls, this pagoda was not afraid of water or fire any more. Just at the time when Lu Ban went to Heavenly Palace, the local god of the land in Dingxian woke up. This twelve-storied pagoda was so heavy that he could barely breathe. Therefore, he draw on a strong wind, blowing the upper three stories to the foot of Big Green Mountain at aprairie out of Shanhai Pass (a pass along the Great Wall) before Lu Ban came back.
We can still see today a leant pagoda at the foot of Big Green Mountain which is exactly the same as this Wooden Pagoda in style. When Lu Ban came back, he was angry to see that the top three stories of the pagoda he had worked on drudgingly disappeared without trace with only nine stories left. What was done could not be undone. He could do nothing but to put the two peals inside the remaining nine stories and left Yingzhou Prefecture with his sister.
Yingxian County Wooden Pagoda is 67.31 meters high, consisting nine stories in total. The plane of it is octagon. Four stories of it are hidden ones so that it seems to be composed of only five stories and six layers of eaves seen from theoutside. This unique structure makes it boorish but exquisite, simple and decent.
The first story is ringed with blue glazed tiles. Such a delicate decoration adds to its refining. There are one door on both the southern and northern side of the base and four doors on the second to fifth stories. Through these wooden partition board, people can enjoy the beautiful scenery outside. Buddha statues are set on each story. The one on the first story is the most eye-catching. It is a sitting statueof Sakyamuni, vivid in appearance and kind in expression. Even the wrinkles on his clothes are simply and smoothly carved. Besides, six frescos of Tathagata are put in the trough on the same story. Flying Apraras above the head of Tathagata are in high spirits and perfect proportion. Colorful and vivid, these frescos are surly of the first class.
The altar on the second story is square, with a statue of a Buddha, two of Bodhisattva and another two of attendant in it. The altar on the third story isoctagon, with four statues of Buddha in it. The one on the forth story is packed with statues of Buddha, Ananda, Kasyapa Manjusri, Samantabhadra. Only two statues are put on the fifth story. All these statues are of varied expression and delicately carved. They are of great art and aesthetic values. There are 24 pillars on the outer part of each story and 8 on the inner part. These pillars are connected by intricate wooden components in order to make the pagoda steadier. In addition, this pagoda is built on a four meter high, two-storied stone base, on which two panes of pillars are set up. Therefore,a double-pane telescopic feed structure isformed. Both panes are decorated with horizontal members of different usage, which make the pillars hold together more tightly. The bold and unconstrained pinnacle at the top sets off the enterprising outlook of the pagoda. Wind-bells hanging on the eaves tinkle in the breeze. Strong element of music is shown though their silvery sounds. This is another attractive scene of the pagoda.
