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The Wooden Pagoda
The Yingxian Wooden Pagoda, fully known as the Sakyamuni Pagoda of Fogong Temple, is located within Fogong Temple in the northwest corner of Yingxian's old town in Shanxi province. It was first built in 1056 (the second year of the Liao Dynasty's Qingning reign) and completed after renovation in 1195 (the sixth year of the Jurchen Jin Dynasty’s Mingchang reign). The pagoda rises to a height of 65.84 meters, with a base diameter of 30.27 m.
The structure is composed of three parts: the base, the body and the spire. The base itself has two tiers: the lower is square, while the upper is octagonal. The pagoda body is octagonal in plan, with the appearance of five visible stories and six eaves, but in fact it has nine stories (five visible and four hidden). The spire is composed of, from bottom to top: a base, an inverted lotus pedestal, a stack of rings (xianglun), an aureole-shaped element, a crescent-moon element, a canopy and precious pearls, all ingeniously integrated with the pagoda body.
The entire structure preserves more than 50 distinct types of bracket sets, making it a true "museum of bracket sets". In addition, on the first story, the door lintels on the north and south sides and the inner walls preserve fragments of Liao Dynasty murals, while each level retains Liao Dynasty painted sculptures — a total of 26. Archaeological finds inside the pagoda have yielded over 160 precious Liao Dynasty artifacts.
As the oldest and tallest surviving all-wood pagoda in China, the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda is a dazzling treasure of China's ancient architecture and a paradigmatic masterpiece of ancient Chinese wooden building.
Inscriptions by Eminent Figures
Since its construction, the pagoda has been adorned with plaques and couplets inscribed by famous figures of successive dynasties, adding depth of meaning and artistic flourish to the pagoda.
In 1406 (the fourth year of the Yongle reign of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)), Emperor Zhu Di, while leading a northern expedition and lodging in Yingzhou, ascended the pagoda and personally inscribed the words "Junji Shengong (Sublime Divine Achievement)."
In 1508 (the third year of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty), Emperor Zhu Houzhao, after leading troops to defeat invading Tatar forces under a prince in the Yanghe (modern Yanggao county, Shanxi) and Yingzhou area, hosted a banquet in the pagoda to honor his victorious generals and officials, inscribing the words "Tianxia Qiguan" (A Marvel under Heaven).
Today, the pagoda preserves 54 plaques and couplets from the Ming and Qing dynasties and the period of the Republic of China (1912-49). Many of the couplets are literary masterpieces, such as: "Piercing the clouds and propping up the heaven, encircled by mountains on all sides; Riding the wind and stepping on the moon, with ten thousand households’ lights reaching into the sky", and "Through drifting clouds to the west, one sees the crimson peaks of Yanmen Pass; In graceful elegance rising into the blue, to the south appears the verdant summit of Longshou Mountain."
Equally celebrated are the precious artifacts from the Liao Dynasty discovered within the pagoda, especially colored sutras carved and printed in the Liao Dynasty, which fill an important gap in the history of Chinese printing. Among the cultural relics, many are Buddhist sutras, including manuscripts and woodblock-printed editions of the Liao era, with some scrolls stretching over 30 meters in length. These are exceedingly rarely seen in China and provide invaluable materials for the study of the politics, economy, and culture of the Liao Dynasty.