Leifeng Pagoda is a five story tall tower with eight sides, located on Sunset Hill south of the

West Lake West Lake (; ) is a freshwater lake in Hangzhou, China. It is divided into five sections by three causeways. There are numerous temples, pagodas, gardens, and natural/artificial islands within the lake. Gushan (孤山) is the largest natural ...

Hangzhou Hangzhou ( or , ; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), also romanized as Hangchow, is the capital and most populous city of Zhejiang, China. It is located in the northwestern part of the province, sitting at the head of Hangzhou Bay, whi ...

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiang ...

, China. Originally constructed in the year AD 975, it collapsed in 1924 but was rebuilt in 2002. Since then, it has become a popular tourist attraction.

History

Original

The original

pagoda A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist but sometimes Taoist, ...

was built in 975 AD, during the

Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (), from 907 to 979, was an era of political upheaval and division in 10th-century Imperial China. Five dynastic states quickly succeeded one another in the Central Plain, and more than a dozen concu ...

period, at the order of King Zhongyi (Qian Chu) of

Wuyue Wuyue (; ), 907–978, was an independent coastal kingdom founded during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907–960) of Chinese history. It was ruled by the Haiyan Qian clan (海盐钱氏), whose family name remains widespread in t ...

for his favorite concubine, Consort Huang. The Leifeng Pagoda was an octagonal, five-story structure built of brick and wood with a base built of bricks. During the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

, Japanese pirates attacked Hangzhou. Suspecting the pagoda contained weapons, they burned its wooden elements, leaving only the brick skeleton, which can be seen from Ming paintings of the West Lake. Leifeng Pagoda was one of the ten sights of the West Lake because of the

Legend of the White Snake The Legend of the White Snake is a Chinese legend. It has since been presented in a number of major Chinese operas, films, and television series. The earliest attempt to fictionalize the story in printed form appears to be ''The White Maiden ...

. In the Chinese folk story “The Legend of White Snake”, the monk Fahai deceived Xu Xian to Jinshan, and the White Lady ran into Jinshan to rescue Xu Xian, and was suppressed by Fahai under the Leifeng Pagoda. Later, due to a superstition that the bricks from the tower could repel illness or prevent miscarriage, many people stole bricks from the tower to grind into powder. On the afternoon of September 25, 1924, the pagoda finally collapsed due to disrepair. At that time

Lu Xun Zhou Shuren (25 September 1881 – 19 October 1936), better known by his pen name Lu Xun (or Lu Sun; ; Wade–Giles: Lu Hsün), was a Chinese writer, essayist, poet, and literary critic. He was a leading figure of modern Chinese literature. W ...

wrote two articles commenting on this event, using the pagoda to symbolize the collapse of pedantic traditional Chinese thoughts and expressing his hope for the future society.

Xu Zhimo Xu Zhimo (, , Mandarin: , 15 January 1897 – 19 November 1931) was a Chinese romantic poet who strove to loosen Chinese poetry from its traditional forms and to reshape it under the influences of Western poetry and the vernacular Chinese langu ...

and

Yu Pingbo Yu Pingbo (; January 8, 1900 – October 15, 1990), original name Yu Mingheng () and courtesy name Pingbo (), was a Chinese essayist, poet, historian, redologist, and literary critic. Early life Yu Pingbo's ancestry can be traced to Deqing, Zhe ...

also wrote poems and articles to commemorate the pagoda. As for whether there was a

mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be consid ...

below, this was debated for years until radar was used to investigate. On March 11, 2001, the mausoleum was excavated and many artifacts were found, most notably a gold and silver coated hair of the Buddha.

Reconstruction

In October 1999, the provincial and municipal governments decided to rebuild Leifeng Pagoda on top of the ruins of the old one. The new pagoda opened on 25 October 2002. It is composed of a 1400 tonne steel structure with 200 tonnes of copper parts. It contains four sightseeing elevators, and modern amenities such as air conditioning, television, and speakers. At the entrance of the pagoda, there are two autonomous escalators to carry visitors to the base of the pagoda. The original base of the pagoda is kept in good condition, as well as the artifacts discovered in the underground chamber.

References

* (English subtitle)
The history and culture of the Leifeng Pagoda
- MildChina.com *https://web.archive.org/web/20080806083444/http://www.hz-west-lake.cn/ *https://web.archive.org/web/20111004022122/http://www.visithangzhou.com/cmarter.asp?doc=1105 *http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2003-10/13/content_336626.htm
Hangzhou West Lake: Too many places, too little time
{{Commonscat, Leifeng Pagoda, position=left Buddhist temples in Hangzhou Pagodas in China 975 establishments 10th-century establishments in China Wuyue architecture