001 Architecture Songyue Pagoda The Songyue Temple Pagoda stands at the southern foot of Mount Taishi in Dengfeng, Henan. With fifteen closely spaced eaves and a dodecagonal plan, it is the oldest surviving brick pagoda in China. Originally the detached palace of Emperor Xiaoming of the Northern Wei, it was converted into a Buddhist temple in the first year of Zhengguang (520). During the Later Zhou suppression of Buddhism, it was proposed to “turn the temple into a Daoist abbey and the ancient pagoda into an altar,” but the pagoda was ultimately spared because of “the protection of the Eight Divisions.” Li Yong’s stele describes the pagoda as “rising from the ground on four tiers and rounding into the sky in eight aspects.” Northern Wei-Northern and Southern Dynasties Dengfeng, Henan Province Songyue Pagoda · Dengfeng Henan · Ancient Architecture →
002 Architecture Xiantong Monastery Xiantong Monastery is located in Taihuai Town, Wutai County, Xinzhou, Shanxi Province. In the time of Wu Zetian of Tang, Dafu Lingjiu Monastery was renamed Great Huayan Monastery. The Tang Huayan monk Chengguan lectured at the monastery and wrote a new commentary on the Huayan Sutra. The Northern Song court included Huayan Monastery among the ten monasteries of the Five Terraces to be rebuilt; in the Ming Yongle era the Buddhist registry of Mount Wutai was established at the monastery, and the monastery and its Buddha śarīra stupa were rebuilt. In the thirty-third and thirty-fourth years of Wanli (1605–1606), the Ming monk Miaofeng Fudeng installed the copper hall and completed the brick “Seven Sites and Nine Assemblies” hall, leaving the copper hall and the beamless hall as the monastery’s core Ming-dynasty remains. Tang dynasty Wutai County, Xinzhou, Shanxi Province Xiantong Monastery · Great Xiantong Monastery · Dafu Lingjiu Monastery →