In April 2001, the Zhejiang Provincial Museum exhibited cultural relics unearthed from the Leifeng Pagoda underground palace in Hangzhou. The gilded silver pagoda inside is quite eye-catching. It is 35 centimeters high. Through the hollows in the pagoda body, you can see a gold c

In the 2nd century BC, India's Ashoka built 84,000 Buddha relic stupas in order to promote Buddhism. To this day, India still has the first tower in Shanchi that can be confirmed to be built by King Asoka, the Dharma Rajka Tower in Taxila, Pakistan, and the Bukhara Tower in Swat②.

These towers are all in the form of a bowl-shaped tower body, with a flat head and a phase wheel on the top, a pedestal below, and surrounded by railings. This style of pagoda has far-reaching influence, and its deformed style can be seen on Gandhara stone carvings and early pagodas in my country.

In April 2001, the Zhejiang Provincial Museum exhibited cultural relics unearthed from the Leifeng Pagoda underground palace in Hangzhou. The gilded silver pagoda inside is quite eye-catching. The pagoda is 35 centimeters high. Through the hollows in the pagoda body, you can see a gold container inside. It is believed that it may be a gold coffin. The coffin should be used to enshrine the Buddha's conch bun hair of the rich and powerful.

Figure 1 Ashoka Pagoda unearthed from the Leifeng Pagoda Underground Palace in Hangzhou

The gilt pagoda is a single-story, corseted, square shape with triangular pillar-shaped corner corners (or corner ends, also called banana leaves in borrowed terms from porcelain decoration). There is a five-layer phase wheel in the middle, and the pagoda is a Mani orb. The four sides of the pagoda are stories of the Buddha's life. It has a square pedestal underneath, with niches on each side, and there are four meditating Buddha statues inside. (Picture 1)

The stupas built with the allusions of King Ashoka have far-reaching influence. The stupas built with the allusions of King Ashoka in our country can be seen in the volume of Tang Daoxuan's "Collection of the Three Treasures of Shenzhou Gantonglu": ∶③

The person who built the Nang Pagoda in Kuaiji in the early Western Jin Dynasty... In the second year of Taikang in the Jin Dynasty, there were Bingzhou Lishi people Liu Sahe ... He died of illness, Su I saw a Sanskrit monk saying: "You have committed serious sins and should be sent to hell..." Today, in Luoxia, Qicheng, Danyang, and Kuaiji, there are also ancient pagodas and stone statues floating on the river. I know that they were built by King Asoka. You can pray diligently and repent to avoid this suffering... As he said, I traveled south to the shore of Kuaiji sea... and suddenly there was a treasure in three days. The pagoda and the relics emerge from the ground. The pagoda looks blue and looks like stone rather than stone... The five-story dew plate is like The Western Region was built in Khotan. It has windows on the front and is surrounded by heavenly bells... Around the pagoda are various images of Buddhas, Pusa, Vajra, holy monks and other miscellaneous things.

is about Liu Sahe (also named Huida), who was born in Lishi, Bingzhou (now Luliang area, Shanxi Province). He was originally a figure in Hengxing Township. He fell ill and died one day. He dreamed that a foreign monk told him that your sins are serious and you should go to hell. Nowadays, the ancient pagodas and floating stone statues in Luoxia, Qicheng, Danyang, Kuaiji and other places were all built by King Ashoka. You can pray more for forgiveness. Liu Sahan traveled south to the seaside of Kuaiji to worship. Within three days, pagodas and relics suddenly emerged from the ground. The pagoda looked blue and looked like stone rather than stone... The five-story dew plate looked like one built in Khotan in the Western Regions, with windows on the front and sky bells all around... Around the pagoda were various images of Buddhas, Pusa, Vajra, holy monks and other miscellaneous images.

Figure 2 Asoka Temple in Luoshan

So Liu Huida built a temple here, which is today the Ashoka Temple in Luoshan County, Zhejiang Province. The relic hall in the temple was also enshrined in the pagoda built by King Asoka, which was said to have emerged due to Liu Sahe's diligent worship (Figure 2).

This Asoka Pagoda was also moved several times. When the Buddha was destroyed in Huichang in the Tang Dynasty, it was moved to the official treasury of Yuezhou. In the 16th year of the 16th year of the reign of Emperor Wu and Yue, King Qian Liu and his younger brother Qian Hua brought the pagoda to Luohan Temple in Hangzhou. In the third year of the Taiping Xingguo reign (978), Qian Chu surrendered to the Song Dynasty. In the following year, the monk Tsan Ning moved the pagoda to Bianjing, and its whereabouts are unknown since then.

King WuyueQian Hongchu (929-988) also imitated King Asoka's allusions and built 84,000 gilt copper pagodas, also known as Wuyue King Pagodas. Because the pagoda body was coated with gold, it was also called a gold-coated pagoda. It was also called the Baozhen Pagoda because the "Baozhen Seal Dharani Heart Mantra Sutra" was hidden in the tower. Southern Song Dynasty Zhipan's "Buddha Tongji" Volume 43 "Fa Yun Tong Sai Ji" Song Taizu The tenth month of the first year of Jianlong (960) has the following records: ∶⑤

Qian Chu, the king of Wuyue, was a Buddhist by nature and admired King Asoka's work in building pagodas. He built 84,000 pagodas with gold, copper and fine steel, and hid a treasure box in which he sealed the mantra sutra and spread it throughout the ministry. He completed his work in ten years.

In 1957, many small square pagodas were unearthed from the Jinhua Ten Thousand Buddha Pagoda and the Huqiu Yunyan Temple Pagoda in Suzhou, as well as the Leifeng Pagoda in Hangzhou in recent years. Since the bottom of the pagoda is engraved with inscriptions about the construction of the pagoda by King Wu Yue, it can be inferred that these small pagodas should be part of the 84,000 pagodas built by King Wu Yue that year. These 84,000 gold-coated pagodas all have basically the same shape and are about 16 centimeters in size. Qian, the king of Wuyue, once personally witnessed the prototype of the Asoka Pagoda in Luoshan Mountain. It is believed that these gold-coated pagodas were made according to the style of the Asoka Pagoda in Luoshan Mountain. Of course, there are also tall ones made of silver or even stone, but they are not included in this batch of 84,000 gold-coated pagodas.

The form of Ashoka Pagoda in Lushan Mountain has been copied as early as Tang Dynasty. After Tang Jianzhen's third failed trip to Japan (744, the third year of Tianbao), he received the care of the Mingzhou prefect and settled in the Asoka Temple in Luoshan. Monk Jianzhen must have paid homage to the Asoka Pagoda. In the twelfth year of Tianbao (753), Jianzhen finally succeeded in crossing the sun for the sixth time. He accompanied 24 monks and brought Buddha relics, Buddha statues, embroidery statues, Buddhist scriptures, ritual instruments and many other dharma objects. Within it is the "Area of ​​Ashoka Stupa-like Gold and Bronze Stupas". The so-called pagoda model should be a copy of the Ashoka Stupa in Luoshan that was visited nine years ago.

According to the Japanese real-life Yuan Kai (Sankai Abandune)'s " Tang Dynasty Yamato's Eastern Expedition" (this book was written in 779 AD), the form of Asoka's Pagoda is described: ⑦

This pagoda is neither gold, nor jade, nor stone, nor soil, nor copper, nor iron, and is purple and black in color. It has unique carvings. On one side it is a prince's transformation, on the other side it is a vision transformation, on one side it is a brain transformation, and on the other it is a rescue pigeon transformation. There is no exposed plate on top, and there is a hanging bell in the middle. It is buried in the ground, and no one can know it.

That is to say, the texture of the pagoda is made of alloy and the carvings are fine. The four sides of the pagoda show four kinds of Jataka story paintings, such as Prince Sa sacrificing himself to feed tigers, King Shibi cutting meat to trade pigeons and other stories of Buddha's Jataka. Daoxuan said in "Ji Shenzhou Sanbao Gantong Lu" that this pagoda is similar to the one built in Khotan in the Western Regions, indicating that there was no such pagoda in the Han area in the past.

Picture 3 Zhang Yanchang "The Golden Stone Deed"

Picture 3 Zhang Yanchang's "The Golden Stone Deed" (1)

In the Qing Dynasty, Wang Chang's "Jinshi Cui Bian", Zhang Yanchang's "Jinshi Qi"⑨, and Feng Yunpeng's " Jinshisuo" also recorded several gold-painted pagodas of the King of Wuyue (Figure 3). There are inscriptions engraved on the bottom of these pagodas:

King Qian Hongchu of Wuyue built 84,000 pagodas, Yimao Suiji

Zhejiang Jinhua Ten Thousand Buddhas Pagoda was unearthed at one time. 15 gold-coated pagodas, 11 of which were made of copper (20 cm high) and four of which were made of iron. It can be known that in addition to copper, there are also iron pagodas. The copper inscription is the same as the above-mentioned epigraphic record, and it was also made in the Yimao year. A well-preserved iron statue (height 20.5 cm) is engraved with:

King Chu of Wuyue built a pagoda of 84,000 to be filled with offerings forever. l3

The actual gold-coated pagodas discovered so far have three different dates, namely 955 for Yimao and 965 for Yichou. The iron-cast gold-coated pagoda unearthed from the Huqiu Pagoda Underground Palace in Suzhou is marked as the second year of Jianlong of Song Taizu, that is, 961.

In 965 A.D., the Japanese Buddhist priest Daoxi wrote "The Book of Treasure Seals", recording that he saw a pagoda built by the King of Wu and Yue in China. It was more than nine inches high and had carved Buddhas and Bodhisattvas on all sides. The four corners of the pagoda are like horses' ears, and the scripture scroll inside the pagoda is printed with "Qian Hongchu, the king of Wuyue and the marshal of the world, has eighty-four thousand volumes of this treasure box to seal the scriptures. They are placed in the pagoda for offerings. The dedication has been completed. It is also the record of Bingchen's birthday in the third year of Xiande"⑩. The third year of Xiande was 956 AD. If this record is reliable, it seems that Qian Hongchu did build a large number of gold-painted pagodas between 950 and 960. The "Buddha Tongji" records that the completion of the work was completed after ten years, which seems credible.

Figure 4 Found in the underground palace under the Jingzhongyuan Pagoda of Jingzhi Temple

In recent years, a Yichou-year-old iron treasure seal pagoda (height 16 .7 cm) has an inscription of fifteen characters cast on its bottom, which is exactly the same style and inscription as the iron seal pagoda unearthed from Jinhua Ten Thousand Buddhas Pagoda11, but the top wheel rod is shorter and the diameter of the phase wheel is larger. It is probably made from the same model as the iron pagoda of Jinhua Ten Thousand Buddhas Pagoda. It is estimated that due to the large number of such treasure seal pagodas, they were probably used as one of the gifts to the Central Plains of China in the later Zhou Dynasty, and were later included in the pagoda underground palace (Figure 4).

According to statistics by some scholars, from the 1950s to the 1970s, a total of 25 gold-coated pagodas were unearthed and collected in Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu, mainly concentrated in the territory of Wuyue Kingdom, with most found in Zhejiang Province today. And according to the current handed down and unearthed items, all the copper towers were cast in the Yimao year, and the iron towers were all cast in the Yichou year and .

Many Asoka-style pagodas have been found in Japan. In 1918 (the seventh year of the Taisho period), one was unearthed from the sutra mound site in Nachi, Higashimolou County, Wakayama Prefecture. According to the analysis of the same unearthed objects, it should be from the 11th century in the late Heian period. In Tokyo National Museum , Imazu Shoganji Temple in Fukuoka City, Kintaiji Temple in Sagara County, Kyoto Prefecture, and Kongoji Temple in Nagano, Osaka, etc. all have gilded pagodas that have been handed down from generation to generation⑧. The reason why there are so many gold-coated pagodas spread in Japan is recorded in Qu Zhongrong's "Zong Sheng Ji":

Today, Qian Hongchu, the king of Wuyue, built a copper pagoda, which was composed of four pieces and painted with Buddhist baskets on the outside. Five hundred envoys were sent to Japan, and the others were all suppressed within the army of the Thirteen Prefectures.

The reason why the inscriptions on the treasure seal pagoda use Yimaosui and Yichou Sui instead of year names is because the Qian family was weak in national power and had not established the Yuan Dynasty. It has always used Later Jin , Later Han , Hou Anniversary, and later used Northern Song . Therefore, these stupas built by the officials of Wuyue Kingdom are probably for psychological reasons. Generally, they do not have anniversary numbers written on them, but mostly use stems and branches to mark the year..

Several pagodas unearthed in China and circulated in Japan so far are all square-shaped with waistbands and banana leaves on the four corners, but the details are not completely consistent, especially the four-sided sutra story pictures of the pagoda. There are several different combinations.

" The Great Monk of the Tang Dynasty's Eastern Expedition" recorded in the four sides of the pagoda, there are four stories of Sakyamuni Buddha's sutra changes: the prince's transformation, the eye-shaking transformation, the brain-breaking transformation, and the pigeon-saving transformation. In Zhang Yanchang's "Golden Stone Deed" " recorded in the story are four sutra transformation stories: King Shibi cutting off meat to trade pigeons, King Cili cutting off ears and burning lanterns, Prince Sachu throwing himself into a cliff to feed tigers, and King Moonlight donating his treasure head. There is no brain transformation and King Kuaimu's eye transformation. Instead, King Cili cuts off his ears and King Moonlight donates his treasure head.

Figure 5 Ashoka Pagoda discovered in Japan

The story of King Cili cutting off his ears and burning lamps and donating treasure heads12 are also found on several gold-painted pagodas in Japan. It can be inferred from this that due to the large number of Wuyue King Pagodas and the long duration before and after casting, there are many types and Jataka stories, and the textures are also divided into iron and copper. (Picture 5)

According to the fifteen gold-coated pagodas unearthed from the Jinhua Ten Thousand Buddhas Pagoda, it can be seen that the casting method is that the pagoda body is connected to the pagoda base, and the four sides are cast into four pieces. The pagoda brake and the four-corner horse ears are also cast separately and then assembled together.

The gold-painted pagoda of the King of Wuyue has a strong foreign style color, and its allusions have been passed down for a long time. There are also many imitations of various textures. Ningbo Ashoka Temple also houses a wooden pagoda, which is exactly the same style as the Wuyue King Pagoda. In 1976, a similar pagoda was unearthed from the Taji Palace in Qingyang County, Anhui Province. The silver medal outside the pagoda has the year 13 of the 25th year of Shaoxing in the Song Dynasty (1155). The "Gold and Stone Deed" also contains a real body relic stupa made by Xia Chengyuan, his disciple, and his wife Lin Yiniang in the fifth year of Xiande of the Later Zhou Dynasty (958). Their family and their family members gave up their wealth and made a real body stupa. The shape and style are also completely imitated from the Wuyue King's stupa, and it should be made by the people.

Figure 6 Counterfeit of the second year of Tang Tianyou

There are also fakes of this kind of pagoda, such as a gold-painted pagoda of the second year of Tang Tianyou (905) collected in Nitta, Japan, which is fifty or sixty years earlier than the gold-painted pagoda of the King of Wuyue.The craftsmanship is weak, the figures are soft, the clothes are in Ming and Qing style, and the pagoda body's phase wheel and four-cornered banana leaves are both made of copper. They should be imitations from the Qing and early Republic of China eras14 (Figure 6).

Japan's "China Crafts Illustrated Book" also contains a gold-coated pagoda that was said to have been unearthed from an abandoned temple in Jiangyou County, Long'an, Sichuan in the 16th year of the Republic of China (1928) and belongs to the first year of Song Xiangfu (1008).

However, this kind of folk imitations and fakes should be distinguished. The gold-coated pagodas that were influenced by the style of the Wuyue King's pagoda and clearly have the chronological model consistent with the era cannot be said to be fakes, but the gold-coated pagodas that are obviously late in style but belong to the Five Dynasties and Song Dynasty are obviously fakes.

Figure 7 Yungang Grottoes 14 Cave Pagoda

At present, apart from folk imitations, no gold-coated pagodas built by King Wu Yue have been found earlier than 955 (Yimao Year), and the latest is 965 (Yichou Year). It is indeed ten years before and after. It can be seen that the historical records are reliable.

Let’s talk about the evolution of the gold-painted pagoda style of King Wu and Yue. The aforementioned Daoxuan said it is similar to the Western Regions Khotan style, so what is the Western Regions Khotan style pagoda? Fa Xian " Buddhist Kingdom " Chapter 7 "To Yutian Kingdom ":

The people of that country live in the stars. In front of every house, there is a small pagoda. The smallest one can be as high as two feet.

It can be seen that the construction of pagodas is very popular in Khotan, and pagodas are built at the door of every house. The "smallest one" in the article seems to be the "biggest one". If the smallest one is two feet high, then the big one can no longer be called a small pagoda.

Stein investigated several Fubo pagodas in Khotan. Judging from the shape of the pagodas in Khotan and Shanshan, the style of the Khotan pagoda is similar to the Fubo pagoda in Gandhara15. However, since the shape of the Wuyue King-style pagoda was established after 950 AD, although the style is inextricably related to the Gandhara-style covered bowl pagoda, it is not exactly the same. The key is that the covered bowl part of the Wuyue King pagoda has deteriorated.

Figure 8 The niche gate on the first floor of the Songyue Temple Pagoda in Dengfeng

This kind of square single-story tower was discussed incisively in the book "The Pagoda of China" by Jiro Murata of Japan in the 1940s. Although the pagodas in China can be traced back to the great Indian mountain pagodas, which are bowl-shaped pagodas with a flat head and a phase wheel on the top and a base below, the ones most closely related to the Wuyue King's pagoda should be the Northern Wei Dynasty. For example, the relief single-story bowl-covered pagoda in Cave 14 of Yungang. Note that there are warped banana leaves and a square pagoda body below the bowl. There is also a niche door on the first floor of the Songyue Temple Pagoda in Dengfeng, Henan, which also has two banana leaves on the left and right under the overturned bowl. This kind of square single-story pagoda often appears above the bare back of gold, bronze and stone Buddha statues. For example, in the first year of Taihe (477), the Yang family made a gold-bronze seated Buddha statue with a single-story small pagoda on the back, with an arched lintel, columns on both sides, covering the top of the alms bowl, and banana leaves at both ends. It is a square pagoda with a clear date in the Northern Wei Dynasty17.

Figure 9 Cave 1 in Nanxiangtang Mountain

During the Zhengguang period (520-525), the light and gorgeous style of bronze Buddha statues became popular for a while. The outer edge of the bare back was inlaid with flying sky, and this kind of single-story square tower was in the center of the top. It can still be seen on the single statue of Northern Qi 18 (Figure 7-9).

Stone Buddha statues in Qingzhou, Shandong Province also have this style of small pagodas on the top of the bare back from the late Northern Wei Dynasty to the Northern Qi Dynasty19.

Figure 10 Tianhe Sixth Year Stone Pagoda

In addition to the square tower represented on the bare back, a separate small stone tower can also be seen. Single-story small stone pagodas seem to have become more popular in the Northern Zhou Dynasty. There are stone statues on all sides with inscriptions from the sixth year of Tianhe (571). (Height 36.5 cm, width 21 cm) 20 Several small stone pagodas of this kind can be seen in Yaowangshan Museum 21, and several of them can be seen in foreign catalogues.(Picture 10)

Picture 11 Anyang Baoshan Lingquan Temple Tang Dynasty Buddhist Pagoda

Henan Anyang Baoshan Lingquan Temple From the Northern Qi Dynasty to the Tang and Song Dynasties, this single-story square pagoda was generally popular. Most of them were reliefs, and the number in the Tang Dynasty was large and exquisite. The detailed decorations and patterns of each pagoda were different, but the basic pattern was mostly an arched niche on the front, covering the top of the bowl, and decorated with mountain flowers and banana leaves. There are 153 such relief pagoda niches in total. Such a concentrated and large-scale representation of such pagoda niches is extremely obvious in Lingquan Temple 22. (Figure 11)

From the Sui Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, the overtop of the single-story small pagoda was very clear. However, the overtop of the Wuyue King Pagoda in the Five Dynasties degenerated, the wheel rods were lengthened, and the four corner ends were like upright horse ears, which became a fixed Although various forms of multi-story and multi-eaves wooden, brick, and stone pagodas had appeared in China at this time, the Wuyue King style pagoda no longer changed much and became a recognized model of the gold-coated pagoda built with the allusions of King Ashoka. It is generally called the Baoji Seal Pagoda.

There have been imitations of this small gold-coated pagoda in all dynasties since the Five Dynasties, while the large-scale Wuyue King-style pagodas on the ground can still be seen in the coastal areas of Jiangnan to the Ming Dynasty, usually made of stone. Some are made of two or three floors. For example, the Duobao Pagoda of Puji Temple in Putuo Mountain, Zhejiang was built during the Yuantong period (1333-1335) of the Yuan Dynasty (about 20 meters high).

What is significant is that this basic square shape with four corners can often be seen on buildings, tombstones, and sarcophagi in the ancient Greek and Roman eras.

Figure 12 The appearance of the Parthenon

Figure 13 Tombstones from the Roman era

In ancient Greece, at least in the 5th century BC or even earlier, the center and four corners of the Victorian and Ionian temples were decorated with figures or animals, such as the Parthenon (447 BC) and the Athena Temple (4th century BC) (Figure 12). It is also widely used in sarcophagi, such as the so-called Alexander sarcophagus (fourth century BC, 318'167'195 cm, unearthed in Lebanon, Istanbul Archaeological Museum, Türkiye), which has a triangular top and four corners of crouching lions. The sarcophagi and tombstones of the Hellenistic era have become more stereotyped, that is, the banana leaf part has clearly shown a triangular column shape, a gable top, and some have a triangular ornament on the top. For example, the outlines of several small tombstones in the Turkish Archaeological Museum always remind people of the single-story pagodas of the Northern Dynasties and Lingquan Temple in the Tang Dynasty. The Wuyue King Pagoda only has no peak part (Figure 13).

Figure 14 A small bronze vessel from the 2nd century

There is also a small bronze vessel from the 2nd century in the same collection. The square shape with upturned corners is the same type as the Wuyue King's Tower, except that the front is cast with an eagle spreading its wings (Figure 14). The tombstones and sarcophagi of the Roman era are strikingly similar in appearance to the single-story pagodas in our country. We are currently unable to figure out a clear path of its evolution from the West to China. However, there is evidence that the Buddhist art of Gandhara was deeply influenced by Greece and Rome. It is likely that the shape of tombstones along the Mediterranean coast evolved into this square-shaped stupa with four upturned corners after the spread of Buddhism to China.

Note:

① Zheng Jiali "Into the Leifeng Pagoda Underground Palace" "China Cultural Relics News" July 18, 2001

② ⑩ Evergreen "The Art History of Chinese Ancient Pagodas" Shaanxi People's Fine Arts Publishing House 1998

③ " Taisho Tibetan " Volume 52 "Historical and Biographical Department"

④ Japan Ando Reborn "Research on Jianzhen Yamato's Uploading" Pinghesha Showa Thirty-five Years

⑤ "Taisho Tibetan" Volume 49 "History and Biography Department"

⑥ Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Relics Management Committee "Jinhua Ten Thousand Buddhas Pagoda Foundation Sentiment Brief" "Cultural Relics Reference Materials" 1957 Issue 5

⑦ Zhen Yuan Kai "Tang Renshang Dongzheng Biography" Zhonghua Book Company 1979

⑧ Okazaki Joeji "An Examination of Qian Hongchu's Eighty-Four Thousand Pagodas" " Buddhist Art " No. 76

⑨ Zhang Yanchang "Golden Stone Deed" Engraved Edition in the 43rd Year of Qianlong's reign