Yingxian Wooden Pagoda

 

Basic Information of Yingxian Wooden Pagoda

Chinese Name: 应县木塔 Pronunciation: yìng xiàn mù tǎ

Building Time: 1056

Suggested Visiting Hours: 2 Hours

Building Function: Worshiping the Buddha.

Best Visiting Time: From April to October

Address: Fogong Temple, Ying County, Shuozhou City, Shanxi Province

 

Admission Fee

Tickets	Price
Yingxian Wooden Pagoda	60 yuan

Opening Hours

Attraction	Peak Season (May 1st to October 10th)	Low Season (October 11th to April 30th)
Yingxian Wooden Pagoda	8:00-19:00	8:00-17:30

      

Facts You Need to Know about Yingxian Wooden Pagoda

Yingxian Wooden Pagoda, also known as the Sakyamuni Pagoda of Fogong Temple, is located in Fogong Temple in the northwest of Ying County, Shuozhou City, Shanxi Province. As the tallest and oldest wooden pagoda in China, the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda, which was built in 1056 AD, the second year of the reign of Emperor Daozong of the Liao Dynasty, was listed as a national cultural relic protection unit and a national AAAA-level scenic spot.
 

Together with the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy and the Eiffel Tower in Paris, it is also one of the “Top 3 Leaning Towers of The World”. In 2016, Yingxian Wooden Pagoda was recognized by Guinness World Records as the tallest wooden pagoda in the world.
 

Being octagonal, Yingxian Wooden Pagoda is 67.31 meters high with a diameter of 30.27 meters at the bottom. It is said that the building of Yingxian Wooden Pagoda cost about 3,000 cubic meters of Korean pine, weighing more than 2,600 tons. The whole pagoda was made of wood, without a single nail. Fifty-four kinds of Dougong, a structural element of interlocking wooden brackets, were employed in the pagoda, and hence Yingxian Wooden Pagoda is called the “Museum of Dougong of Chinese Ancient Architecture”. Two Buddha teeth are enshrined in the pagoda.

 

History of Yingxian Wooden Pagoda

Initiated by Empress Xiao, the construction of the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda was completed in the second year of the reign of Emperor Daozong of the Liao Dynasty (1056) and it was expanded and restored in the Southern Song Dynasty. The pagoda was considered as a family temple to show the prestige and power of an empire and served as a place for worshiping the Buddha, sightseeing, and detecting the enemies.
 

In 1423, Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty led his troops to Xuanhua, giving a counterattack to the Tatar and Oirat tribes who invaded the north of China. On the way back to the capital (now Nanjing, Jiangsu Province), Emperor Yongle stopped at Yingzhou (now Ying County). The unique Yingxian Wooden Pagoda shocked him, and he wrote down four characters of 峻极神工 (jùn jí shén gōng) on a plaque to eulogize the magnificence of the pagoda. The plaque was rehung on Yingxian Wooden Pagoda in May 1613.
 

In 1517, the twelfth year of Emperor Zhengde of the Ming Dynasty, the prince of Tatar invaded Yanghe (now Yanggao County in Shanxi Province) and attacked Yingzhou. The commander-in-chief Wang Xun fought with the enemy but besieged in Yingzhou. Emperor Zhengde led his army in-person to support Wang Xun. In October, the two armies had a bloody battle in Yingzhou for six days, and finally, the Tatar was defeated. This decisive battle hit the Tatar hard, and after that, the border remained peaceful for several years. In July of the following year, Emperor Wuzong came to Yingzhou for the second time to celebrate the victory of the Yingzhou battle. He hosted a banquet in Yingxian Wooden Pagoda to reward officials who had made contributions to the war, and he wrote four characters 天下奇观 (Wonders of the World) to praise that the wooden pagoda was a wonder in the world.
 

In 1926, a force led by Feng Yuxiang, a warlord in Republican China, headed to Shanxi Province, where they encountered their enemy, an army led by Yan Xishan, a warlord who served in the government of Republican China. A battle between the two forces broke out. During the war, Yingxian Wooden Pagoda was struck by more than 200 bullets.
 

In 1948, Ying County was liberated. The Kuomintang troops defending the city set up a set of machine guns in the pagoda, where was regarded as the highest position in Ying County, and in the battle the wooden pagoda was hit by 12 shells.
 

In 1961, Yingxian Wooden Pagoda became the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units. In 1974, many precious cultural relics such as carved scriptures, written scriptures, and Buddha paintings were discovered during the refurbishment of the statues in the pagoda.
 

In 1993, more than a dozen scientific research departments, including the Institute of Geophysics, China Earthquake Administration, and the Ninth General Survey Brigade of the North China Petroleum Bureau of the Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources, conducted a detailed survey of the geological conditions of Yingxian Wooden Pagoda and its surroundings.
 

In November 2012, Yingxian Wooden Pagoda was included in the Tentative Lists of UNESCO World Cultural Heritage.
 

On September 29, 2013, 31 academicians, experts, and scholars from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage agreed on the reinforcement plan for the inclined parts and severely damaged components of Yingxian Wooden Pagoda.

 

Architectural Features of Yingxian Wooden Pagoda

With a history of more than 900 years, Yingxian Wooden Pagoda has gone through numerous seasonal changes, the erosion of wind, rain, and snow and has survived over a dozen large earthquakes with a seismic intensity of more than 5 degrees.
 

Since the 1930s, many Chinese experts and scholars have devoted themselves to the study and exploration of the structure of Yingxian Wooden Pagoda and tried to figure out the mystery of the pagoda, which remains intact and is still standing throughout the centuries.
 

Built on a four-meter-high platform, Yingxian Wooden Pagoda is located between the gate and the main hall on the north-south axis of Fogong Temple. The soil of the wooden pagoda’s foundation is mainly composed of clay and sand, which gives an ideal geological condition for building the pagoda and a loading capacity that is far greater than the pressure given by the pagoda. Therefore, until now, there is still no need to worry about the possibility that the wooden pagoda will fall due to a fragile foundation.
 

In terms of the structure, the majority of ancient buildings adopted the design of a rectangular, hexagonal, or octagonal plane, while Yingxian Wooden Pagoda employs a two-octagon structure, dividing the whole pagoda into the inner and outer parts. The inner part is dedicated to Buddha statues, while the outer part is for walking, worshiping, and other activities.
 

With the first story being equipped with double eaves, the pagoda seems to have only five stories and six eaves seen from the outside, but there are nine stories within the pagoda. Each story is supported by two rings of wooden columns, including 24 exterior columns and 8 interior columns. Besides, many diagonal braces, beams, purlins, and short columns are used between the wooden columns to form composite beam wooden frames stretching to different directions. It is the two-barrel structure that endows the pagoda with stability and resilience.
 

The design of Yingxian Wooden Pagoda brought the traditional architectural techniques into full use, especially a structural style called Dougong, which serves as an indispensable element in connecting the beams and columns. There are 54 kinds of Dougong in the pagoda, each of which has a certain form of combination. Since the beams and columns are not rigidly connected by Dougong, when subjected to horizontal forces such as high winds and earthquakes, certain displacement and friction of wooden strips can absorb and lose part of the energy and adjust the deformation.
 

Ye Keming and Jiang Huancheng, academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, believe that the reason for ensuring that the wooden pagoda does not fail for thousands of years is that the structure of the pagoda is very scientific. It is a wonderful combination of rigidity and flexibility, playing an essential role in dissipating energy and absorbing the shock caused by disasters like earthquakes.
 

There are two doors in the south and north on the first story of the pagoda and there are flat railings around the second story and above. Each story is equipped with wooden stairs, which allow visitors to climb the pagoda. Buddha statues could be seen in every story of the pagoda. In the first story is the statue of Sakyamuni Buddha, which is 11 meters high. The altar in the second story is square, on which stand statues of one Buddha, two Bodhisattvas, and two gods who assist the Buddha or Bodhisattva in subduing demons. Besides, some Buddhist figures like the Sakyamuni Buddha were painted on the wall.

 

Top Highlights of Yingxian Wooden Pagoda

Buddha’s Teeth

On June 18, 1966, a fancy silver box was found under the Buddha statue on the third story of Yingxian Wooden Pagoda. On July 28, 1974, when the professional technicians were checking the condition of the statues on each story, they accidentally found a batch of treasures of the Liao Dynasty in the main statue on the fourth story, and the origin of the silver box was then revealed. It turned out that the silver box also came from the main statue on the fourth story, and it was hidden on the third story by someone who tried to steal it but failed.
 

Two months later, inspectors found that the second story of the main Buddha statue was pried open and all the hidden treasures were stolen. The police found that the thief, who turned out to be a maintenance carpenter, stole the other silver box and sold it. The stolen box was recovered, and the items in the two silver boxes were not expected by anyone before. They were not general Buddhist treasures or relics of the Liao Dynasty, but Buddhist treasures of great significance, namely the Buddha’s teeth. The two Buddha’s teeth are considered as the remains of Shakyamuni’s teeth based on textual research.
 

Eight Giants under the Lotus Throne

There is a huge statue of Shakyamuni Buddha sitting on a lotus throne. The lotus throne is carried by eight giants, each of whom has astonishing power and vivid image. These eight giants used to be the guardian gods stationed in eight directions. They went down to the secular world stealthily while the Buddha went out to study sutra. Originally, the mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas were arranged neatly like chess pieces, but they casually moved the mountains around and made a mess. The ordinary people were homeless and complained a lot.
 

After the Buddha knew this, he transformed into a scholar and came to the secular world to look for these 8 giants. One day, the Buddha saw these 8 giants playing with some big mountains together and asked them: "Are you the famous eight giants? If your strength is great, then I will sit on this lotus throne and see if you can lift me?" At first, two giants tried to lift, and the lotus throne did not move at all. Then 6 giants tried to lift and they only lifted the lotus throne over the feet. Finally, eight giants went to lift it together. When they lifted the lotus seat over their heads, the Buddha controlled them with his magic power. From then on, the 8 giants became what they are now, carrying the lotus throne forever.
 

Plaques and Scrolls of Buddhist Sutra

Some representative plaques include “峻极神工” (eulogizing the extraordinary architecture techniques of the pagoda) written by Emperor Yongle and “天下奇观” (meaning a wonder in the world) by Emperor Wuzong of the Ming Dynasty. There are 54 plaques and couplets of the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the Republic of China in the pagoda. Apart from that, there are also several precious cultural relics of the Liao Dynasty, especially the Liao engraved color printing.
 

The majority of the cultural relics in Yingxian Wooden Pagoda are scrolls of Buddhist Sutra, including manuscripts, wood printing, and so on, among which some scriptures are more than 30 meters long. A work named “Collecting Herbs” painted to commemorate Master Huineng, a legendary figure in Chinese Buddhism, was originally hidden in the belly of the Buddha statue on the fourth story of the pagoda and now it is preserved in the Cultural Relics Management Institute in Ying County.

 

Warm Tips

For the preservation of the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda, only the first story of the pagoda is open for sightseeing. With four distinct seasons, spring and fall are perfect for visiting this pagoda. There is a temple behind the wooden pagoda that you can visit, but don't buy incense because it is very expensive inside.

 

How to Get to Yingxian Wooden Pagoda

By Bus

Take Bus No. 5, get off at Zhiyuan Square Station, and then walk about 370 meters to get to Yingxian Wooden Pagoda.

Take Bus No. 1, 2, or 3, get off at Zhonghang Station, and then walk about 530 meters to get to Yingxian Wooden Pagoda.
 

By Taxi

Chinese: 请带我去应县木塔。English: Please take me to Yingxian Wooden Pagoda.

Place	Fare	Time
Yingxian Railway Station → Yingxian Wooden Pagoda	Around 35 yuan	Around 20 minutes
Datong Yungang Airport → Yingxian Wooden Pagoda	Around 290 yuan	Around 1 hour 20 minutes