Linqing stupa was built in the thirty-ninth year of Wanli of Ming Dynasty (16 1 1). It is an octagonal nine-story brick tower, about 60 meters high, with eight bases, each of which is 4.9 meters long and the bottom area is 186 square meters. The tower foundation and the first floor are bluestone, and the upper floors are blue bricks. First floor.
The ninth floor of the tower has a single eaves, and a bucket arch is built under the eaves. Iron bells are tied to the hanging walls in every corner. On the lintel of the first floor, the word "stupa" is engraved, and the word "Amitabha" is inlaid on eight sides of each tower. The outer tower of the whole tower is inlaid with 72 "Amitabha".
The tower body gradually retracts, but the range of retraction is small, and the outer viewing edge is almost vertical, so the whole ancient pagoda looks thick and thick, and even on the ninth floor, a wider tower room remains.
The tower top structure of Linqing stupa is rather strange. It is made of layers of blue bricks, and the top looks like a lotus, with eight curved ridges hanging down, which looks like the helmet of an ancient general. According to records, the pagoda, which was nearly seven meters high, was later destroyed in the earthquake in the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty. The existing "general helmet" should be the "folded part" under the pagoda. Because the top floor of this pagoda is much wider than ordinary pagodas, it is reasonable to have a larger folding part.
There is a corner ladder along the tower wall in the tower, which can only accommodate one person and can detour to the top of the tower. This structure makes each floor have a spacious tower room, and there is a tower core column in the center of the eighth and ninth floors. There are a lot of stone carvings embedded in the tower wall, but most of the handwriting has been damaged.
It is recorded that this tower was built because of geomantic omen, but there is a strong Buddhist atmosphere inside and outside the tower. The first floor of the tower is dedicated to Tathagata, Pharmacist Buddha and Amitabha Buddha, the sixth floor is dedicated to Guanyin Bodhisattva, and the ninth floor is dedicated to seven Buddha statues except one side. Although the Buddha statues in the tower were placed in recent years, the caves in the shrines are ancient. The brick carvings on the east, west, south and north of the tower room on the seventh floor are "Azhong Buddha", "Amitabha Buddha", "Baosheng Buddha" and "Achievement Buddha", which means seven pagodas and four-sided Buddha. There are as many as 72 "Amitabha" inlaid outside the tower, and the word "relic" in the name of the tower shows that the tower is closely related to Buddhism.
After Buddhism was introduced into China, many China characteristics were integrated, such as pavilion-style stupa, which is a specialty of China, and it should not be surprising that it is combined with the unique "Feng Shui" of China in some aspects.