Yuquan Temple Iron Pagoda
3 min readYuquan(jade-like stream) Temple Iron Pagoda of Dangyang County, Hubei is the tallest iron pagoda extant in China. It, together with Chongjue Temple Pagoda andXinglong Temple Pagoda, is known as one of the Three Tall Iron Pagodas in China.
This iron pagoda locates in Yuquan Temple at the eastern foot of Yuquan Mountain. According to historic records, Iron Pagoda was built in the Song dynasty,1061 in specific. It was called Tathagatas Sarira Pagoda or Gilded Iron Pagoda at that time. The entire pagoda is after the model of wooden pagoda, with its plane in the shape of an octagon. It is 17.9 meters high, consisting all together 13 stories. The body part is made of pig iron, weighing 53.3 tons. Different from the body part, its base is built by specially-made flashed bricks. Under the base is a two-layered throne of Mt. Sumeru, with a lotus-petal-like niche on each side of the south, north, east and west. Different patterns are carved on the rest four sides, such as the Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea, two dragons playing a pearl, mountains and seas, waves, seaweeds and so on. These patterns are smooth in outline and balanced in proportion.
There is a God of Power, hand holding a pagoda, on each of the eight corners at the base.A1l the eight Gods of Power are wearing in suits of amour, standing on legendary mountains and stroking the pagodas on their hands. They are dignified ingesture, magnificent in appearance and vivid in image. There engraved on the second floor of the pagoda an inscription, saying “made on the 15th day of the eighthmonth, the sixth reigning year of Jiayou in the Song dynasty”, that is the year 1061. Tiny as this inscription is, it is a reliable evidence to show the exact date of the building of this pagoda. There also engraved on the body inscriptions showingthe name “Sarira Buddha’s Tooth Pagoda”and the weight “106,600 jin”(that is 53,300 kilogram). They are important materials to the study on this pagoda. Because there carved about a thousand statues of Buddha both inside and outside the walls, it is also called”One-Thousand-Buddha Pagoda”. The appearance of the pagoda is fine and slender, erect and beautiful; especially the bracket sets in the eaves on the top oi the pagoda are particularly gorgeous. On the top of the upturned eaves cast a dragonhead stretching out of the pagoda into the air, with wind bells hanging in the mouth of the dragon.
When you first see this iron pagoda, you will find that it inclines a little northward. Many people think it is because of the craftsmen’s faults. But it is not the real case. The whole pagoda was built in the way that a molding was founded first and then cast together. That is to say, each layer of the pagoda was cast separately and simply combined together with no welding. Giving that Yuquan Mountainrun from north to south and that the frequent winds coming from the north were very strong, the craftsmen purposely made it leaned northward at an angle of 1.5 degrees°when they erected the pagoda to make sure this pagoda can stand against the strong northern winds in winter. In this way, this iron pagoda stood steady and erect on the Yuquan Mountain after exposing to the weather for over one thousand years.
