Pagoda of Chengtian Temple

About

The Pagoda of Chengtian Temple, whose name in Chinese means the Bearing Heaven Pagoda, rises in Yinchuan in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region of northwestern China. It is the surviving monument of a Buddhist Temple complex first founded under the Tangut Western Xia dynasty, and at 64.5 metres it remains the tallest pagoda in Ningxia. The people of Yinchuan know it as the Western Pagoda, a counterpart to the Haibao or Northern Pagoda.

The first pagoda on this spot was raised in the early years of Emperor Yizong of Western Xia, when the Empress Dowager commissioned the work to protect the reign of her infant son and to house pieces of bone from the head of the Buddha. A commemorative stele preserved its consecration date in the first year of the Tianyou Chuisheng era, corresponding to 1050. Five years later, Emperor Renzong of Song sent a complete set of the Tripitaka to be deposited at the Temple.

By the early Ming era the surrounding Temple had fallen to ruin and only the pagoda still stood. The early Ming poet Wang Xun lamented the silence of its bell and the loneliness of its tiers, awaiting a patron to restore the place. That patron came in Zhu Zhan, the sixteenth son of the Hongwu Emperor, whose grandson Zhu Suikan completed the renovation in 1469.

A great earthquake struck Yinchuan on 3 January 1739 and destroyed the pagoda. The present eleven-storeyed octagonal brick pagoda was raised on the original site in 1820, thought to follow the form of the lost Western Xia tower. It is hollow within, with an eastern entrance and wooden stairs climbing to the top storey. In 2006 it was listed as a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level.

History

The Empress Dowager of Western Xia ordered the first pagoda built in 1050 CE, in the infancy of her son Emperor Yizong, to protect his reign and to house fragments of the Buddha's skull bone; five years later Emperor Renzong of Song sent a complete Tripitaka to be deposited at the Temple. The Temple had fallen to ruin by the early Ming dynasty, and restoration begun by the prince Zhu Zhan was completed by his grandson Zhu Suikan in 1469. An earthquake destroyed the pagoda on 3 January 1739, and the present brick pagoda was raised on the same site in 1820, believed to follow the form of the lost Western Xia original. A further earthquake in January 2025 damaged glazed tiles and the ornamental finial at the pagoda's summit, and repair work was still being assessed by Ningxia's cultural heritage authorities as of this record.

Significance

At 64.5 metres the pagoda is the tallest in Ningxia, taller than Xi'an's Big Wild Goose Pagoda, and Yinchuan residents call it the Western Pagoda, a counterpart to the city's Northern or Haibao Pagoda. It was placed on China's Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level in 2006, and the hollow tower, climbed by wooden interior stairs to windows at its summit, remains the enduring landmark of the wider Chengtian Temple complex around it.

Architecture

Western Xia-form octagonal brick pagoda (Qing-era reconstruction), eleven storeys, hollow interior with wooden stairs