The Twin Pagodas are the main remnant of the Dinghui Buddhist temple in
Suzhou
Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trad ...
, China.
Twin pagodas are a rare feature of Chinese temples, which usually had a single pagoda. Both are built of brick and they are similar in size, having eight sides and seven stories. Except for the octagonal room on the second floor, all rooms are square, each one staggered 45 degrees from the lower storey. The pagodas are about 30 metres high. Their steeples are made of iron and are long relative to the whole pagoda, which is also rare among ancient Chinese pagodas.
Their names are Reliquary (
Śarīra
Śarīra is a generic term referring to Buddhist relics, although in common usage it usually refers to pearl or crystal-like bead-shaped objects that are purportedly found among the cremated ashes of Buddhist spiritual masters. Relics of the Bu ...
) Pagoda and Beneficial Virtue Reliquary Pagoda (or "Clarity Dispensing Pagoda" and "Beneficence Pagoda"
.)The pagodas were once called "Sarira Stupa" and "Sarira Stupa of Merits and Benevolence".
)
Columns, plinths and decapitated statues belonging to the Tang-era temple can be seen near the pagodas.
History
The
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, ...
s were constructed in 982 AD
during the
Northern Song period through a donation of Wang Wenhan and his brother.
The temple was originally called Banruo, then Luohan during the Five Dynasties, then the West Temple in the late 10th century and finally Dinghui at the end of 11th century. The temple burned down in the last years of the
Yuan dynasty
The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fif ...
and was rebuilt by the joint effort of four monks.
It was destroyed again during the
Second Opium War
The Second Opium War (), also known as the Second Anglo-Sino War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a colonial war lasting from 1856 to 1860, which pitted the British Empire#Britain's imperial ...
in 1860.
Su Shi
Su Shi (; 8 January 1037 – 24 August 1101), courtesy name Zizhan (), art name Dongpo (), was a Chinese calligrapher, essayist, gastronomer, pharmacologist, poet, politician, and travel writer during the Song dynasty. A major personality of ...
, a notable litterateur of the Song period, was a close friend of Shou Qin, the abbot of the Dinghui Temple. After the former was banished to distant
Huizhou
Huizhou ( zh, c= ) is a city in central-east Guangdong Province, China, forty-three miles north of Hong Kong. Huizhou borders the provincial capital of Guangzhou to the west, Shenzhen and Dongguan to the southwest, Shaoguan to the north, Heyu ...
, Shou Qin sent him encouraging poems, ''Ten Odes on Hansha'', and personal letters from Su Shi's son Su Mai. Su Shi composed a response which was engraved on the temple walls during Ming times.
[ According to an intellectual joke, the Twin Pagodas represented brushes while the nearby black tower dedicated to the ]God of Literature
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
represented an inkstone
An inkstone is traditional Chinese stationery. It is a stone mortar for the grinding and containment of ink. In addition to stone, inkstones are also manufactured from clay, bronze, iron, and porcelain. The device evolved from a rubbing tool us ...
.
References
{{Reflist
External links
* 1905-1915 photographs of the Twin Pagodas
Buddhist temples in Suzhou
Towers completed in the 10th century
Religious buildings and structures completed in the 900s
Tang dynasty Buddhist temples