First, the history of the ancient pagoda
In the vast and beautiful land of China, ancient pagodas can be seen everywhere. These ancient pagodas in various forms are comparable to other kinds of ancient buildings in China in terms of their beautiful shapes, exquisite structures, gorgeous carvings and decorations. But in the early ancient buildings in China, there were buildings, pavilions, corridors, tombs, bridges, houses and no towers. It turns out that the tower is not an inherent type in China, but an exotic building. After the tower was introduced into China, it was combined with the original architectural form in China, forming a new architectural type with traditional characteristics in China.
Pagoda, originally produced in India, is a Buddhist building. In the 5th and 6th centuries BC, Buddhism was founded by Sakyamuni in ancient India. The stupa was a building used to preserve or bury the "relics" of the founder of Buddhism. A relic, whose original meaning is a corpse or a bone. According to Buddhist scriptures, after Sakyamuni's death, disciples cremated his body, forming many crystal beads, called relics. There are other bones, teeth, hair, etc., also known as relics. Later, it expanded, and the remains of bones and teeth burned after the death of monks with higher virtue were also called relics.
There are two kinds of pagodas in ancient India: one is the "wave-blocking" for burying relics and Buddhist bones, which belongs to the nature of graves; The other is the so-called "supporting" or "making a bottom", in which there are no Buddhist relics, which is called a temple, that is, the so-called pagoda temple. During the Eastern Han Dynasty in the first century A.D., with the introduction of Buddhism, Indian pagodas were also introduced into China, and combined with the inherent architectural forms and national culture of our country, which had great changes and development. The "Zhiti" in ancient India has developed into a cave temple in China, while the "extraction and wave blocking" for burying and offering Buddhist relics has developed into various ancient pagodas. Judging from the development history and existing physical objects of ancient pagodas, whether there are relics buried in them or not, they are all called pagodas. It can be seen that the ancient pagodas in China evolved from the ancient Indian concept of "pumping waves to stop waves".
Judging from the development history of Chinese characters, there is no "tower" in early Chinese characters. When the stupa was introduced into China, its name was translated into various forms, and people played their respective roles, some transliteration, some free translation and some formal translation. Thus, various names have appeared, such as "pumping waves", "stealing women", "Buddhist figure", "pagoda", "square grave", "high fairy" and "Miao Ling". Later, people created a word "Answer" according to the rhyme "Buda" of the Sanskrit word "Buddha" and added a word "Earth" to indicate the meaning of the grave. In this way, the word "tower" not only accurately expresses its inherent function of burying relics, but also shows from the phonology that it is the original building of ancient India, accurate, appropriate and wonderful, so the name "tower" is widely popular.
The process of Indian extraction and wave blocking, the combination of China's inherent architectural form and national culture is not only the process of China of foreign culture, but also the change and development of China ancient pagoda from scratch. In this process, compared with the ancient Indian Wave, the ancient pagoda in China has undergone great changes in form, structure, layout and function. As soon as the Indian semi-circular extraction wave was introduced into China, it was first combined with the original noble and prominent architectural forms in China, and pavilions appeared. The pagoda of Baima Temple, the first Buddhist temple in China, is such an architectural form. Later, with the widespread spread of Buddhism in China and the development of building materials technology, pavilion towers, dense eaves towers, flower towers, King Kong throne towers and street-crossing towers appeared. It also appears on the land of our country. Even the Lama Pagoda, which is very similar to the ancient Indian Pagoda, has added many China elements in architectural modeling and decorative arts. Obviously, from the form of tower, Indian extraction wave has been greatly developed in China.
In ancient India, relics were buried and enshrined in the wave of extraction and blocking. In China, underground palaces are usually built under towers to bury or worship relics. This is the product of the combination of Indian pumping wave and China's inherent mausoleum system. Compared with Indian pagodas, China ancient pagoda has not only towers, pagodas, stacked seats, but also underground palaces, and great changes have taken place in its structure. During the maintenance of modern and contemporary pagodas, people also found relics at the top of the tower, which shows that the underground palace under the tower is not the only place where China pagodas bury relics. However, the appearance of underground palace is an important symbol of the China-ization of Indian extraction wave.
Around the time when the waves were blocked in ancient India, although there were a few ancillary buildings, they were all very simple. Around or beside the ancient pagoda in China, there are huge buildings. In these buildings, there are halls, corridors and pavilions. At first, this tower was located in the center of the temple. Buddhist temple, Buddhist temple, etc. Built around the stupa. With the improvement of the status of Buddhist temples, temples and pagodas are juxtaposed, or pagodas are placed behind the temples or even moved outside the temples, but the pagodas have never left the temples, which is the result of the combination of ancient Indian waves and palaces and mansions in China. To spread Buddhism in China, we must adopt a form that our people are familiar with and willing to accept. The introduction and development of pumping waves in ancient India are inseparable from the introduction and development of Buddhism. Therefore, the ancient pagodas in China are not only full of strong religious color, but also full of strong national traditional culture color, thus becoming a special type of ancient architecture in China and a gorgeous and beautiful architectural spectacle.
Second, the development stage of the ancient pagoda
According to the records of historical documents and the investigation and analysis of existing ancient pagodas and pagodas sites in China, the development of ancient pagodas can be roughly divided into three stages.
First, the Eastern Han Dynasty to the early Tang Dynasty was the first stage of the development of ancient pagodas. At this stage, the Indian wave of pumping and blocking began to combine with the traditional architectural form of China, which is a continuous running-in stage.
Buddhism, like other religions, must spread its teachings in kind. In addition to Buddhist scriptures and Buddha statues, the physical object of Buddhism spreading teachings is stupa. According to historical records, after the famous "Yongping Seeking Dharma", Emperor Han Ming built the first Buddhist temple in China-Baima Temple, including the pagoda, in the 11th year of Yongping (AD 68). "Old Book Historical Records Interpretation" says: "The White Horse Temple was built in Luo Zhong, decorated with floating pictures and painted with four beauties."
When Buddhism was first introduced to China, people were very unfamiliar with the famous Indian Buddhists, such as Buddha, relic and Zhai Bo. Emperor Han Ming welcomed the messengers of Buddhism into Luoyang, and his brother Liu Ying, the king of Chu, became one of the first believers. There are differences and conflicts between the teachings of Buddhism and China's inherent kingship, Confucianism and religious beliefs. In order to survive, Buddhism has to adopt a conciliatory attitude and strive to expand its influence with people's accustomed or familiar ways of thinking and behavior. In this case, the semi-circular extracted wave from India can't keep its original shape, and it is bound to change its original appearance on the premise of catering to the traditional architectural style of China. Because of its age, there were no physical objects in the buildings at that time, but we learned from the literature that the earliest pagodas in China were mainly pavilion-style buildings. Both the History of the Three Kingdoms and the History of the Later Han Dynasty recorded that the pagoda of Xuzhou Futu Temple built at the end of the Han Dynasty was a big wooden pagoda with nine heavy copper towers at the top, and the number of towers in important pavilions would not be too small.
Then, among the numerous traditional architectural forms in China, why do Buddhist communicators "graft" wave extraction and wave blocking into high-rise buildings? Since the Eastern Han Dynasty, high-rise buildings popular from the Warring States to the Western Han Dynasty have been gradually replaced by wooden high-rise buildings, except for some special ritual buildings. Whether it is the court or the landlord's manor, it is popular to build wooden high-rise buildings. In addition to residential buildings, there are towers, market buildings, warehouse buildings, watchtowers and defensive towers. It is all kinds of tall wooden buildings that constitute the characteristics of the Eastern Han Dynasty architecture. In addition, it should be noted that the emperors and nobles in Qin and Han dynasties were generally keen on seeking immortality and observing the sky, collecting dew and receiving quotations. According to the saying that "immortals live in good buildings", at least in the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, a 50-foot-high tic-tac-toe building (that is, a tall building made in Minoru Oki) appeared to pray for the immortals. Therefore, the wooden high-rise building is not only the noblest building at that time, but also a mysterious building. It is a very beneficial choice to "graft" the extracted wave on it.
Although there are no examples of pagodas in the Han Dynasty, we can still see them from the pottery buildings unearthed in Guxian County, Henan Province and the pottery pagodas unearthed in Wuwei, Gansu Province. This kind of square wooden pagoda, which is composed of frame pavilions and extracted waves, has been enduring for hundreds of years in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties since it came out in the Eastern Han Dynasty and has become a classic style of pagodas in this period. In this regard, "Shu Wei Shi Lao Zhi" makes it very clear: "The system of each palace tower is still rebuilt according to the old Tianzhu system, from level 1 to level 3, level 5, level 7 and level 9. The world is descended from the same source, which is called' floating map' or cloud' Buddha map'. " Obviously, "Tianzhu old shape" refers to the wave of blocking from India, and "reconstruction" is a multi-storey wooden castle. It should be the basic form of pagodas in this period to place extraction waves at the top of wooden pavilions. By the way, I also visited some pavilions during this period. Although they are also the product of combining wave-pumping and wave-blocking with the original architectural forms in China, they are not the mainstream of pagoda architecture in this period.
Secondly, from the Tang Dynasty to the Liao and Jin Dynasties, it was the second stage of the development of ancient pagodas in China, and it was also the peak of the development of ancient pagodas in China.
During the Tang and Song Dynasties, ancient pagodas reached unprecedented prosperity. Compared with the previous generation, the total number of towers has greatly increased, and the materials for building towers are also richer. Besides wood, bricks and stones, materials such as copper, iron and glass are also used. Attic-style, dense eaves-style and pavilion-style towers are in their heyday, and flower pagodas and printed pagodas are now brilliant. This period is the last stage from wooden tower to masonry tower. Due to the change of materials, architectural modeling and technology also change. One of the most important points is that the plane of the tower has gradually evolved from square to hexagon and octagon.
According to literature records and physical investigation, the plane of early wooden towers was mostly square, which originated from the plane of pavilions. Although there were a few hexagonal pagodas and octagonal pagodas before Sui and Tang Dynasties, and even a special case of Song Yue Temple's dodecahedron pagoda, most of the existing Tang pagodas are square pagodas. But after entering the Song Dynasty, hexagonal and octagonal towers quickly replaced square towers. The change of tower plane is first caused by the rich experience accumulated by builders from long-term tower construction practice. China is a country with many earthquakes, and high-rise buildings, especially masonry high-rise buildings, are easily damaged in earthquakes. Ancient craftsmen have realized from the observation of earthquake damage that the sharp corners of buildings are easy to be damaged due to concentrated stress in earthquakes. However, the obtuse or rounded corners are not easy to be damaged because of the uniform stress during the earthquake. Therefore, considering the usability and firmness, it is natural to change the plane of the ancient pagoda. Secondly, in order to meet people's needs to climb the tower and overlook it, it is also the reason why the plane of the ancient pagoda has changed. Although the wooden tower is square, it is easy to set a flat seat, so that people can come out of the tower and look around against the railing. After being converted into a brick tower, the flat seats can't be picked out too far, so it is difficult for people to get out of the tower, and the danger is greatly increased. After changing to hexagon or octagon, it can not only effectively expand the field of vision, but also help reduce the wind force, with obvious advantages.
Due to the change of social customs, there are obvious differences in aesthetic characteristics between Tang and Song pagodas and Liao and Jin pagodas. Generally speaking, the towers built in the Tang Dynasty are generally not decorated. Tang people mainly pursue simple and clear lines, steady and dignified outlines and cordial and harmonious rhythms. The towers in the Tang Dynasty show the unrestrained personality and tolerance of the people in the Tang Dynasty. However, the Song people pursue exquisiteness, delicacy and femininity, so the art of the Song Tower has opened up a new realm in terms of decoration, expression and appearance, trying to render its dazzling outline changes and rather gaudy formal beauty. As for Liao and Jin, who fought against the Song Dynasty, they wrote another glorious chapter in the golden age of China ancient pagoda in the blending of tang style and Song rhyme. The inner attraction of religion is the only theme that tower builders try their best to express.
Thirdly, from Yuan Dynasty to Ming Dynasty and then to Qing Dynasty, it is the third stage of the development of ancient pagodas in China.
After the Yuan Dynasty, there was no higher breakthrough in the material and structural technology of the tower, but there were some new developments in the form. Most obviously, with the spread of Lamaism, the bottle-shaped Lama Pagoda has entered the ranks of China stupas. This tower with strong exotic flavor has maintained their thick, strong and plump appearance for a long time. During the 600 years from the Yuan Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, the main change of this tower shape was the change of the proportion of its pagoda (that is, "thirteen days"), which changed from a pointed cone in the Yuan Dynasty to a straight tube. After the Ming Dynasty, imitating the King Kong throne tower of the Indian Buddha Gaya King Kong Tower, together with the Lama Tower, the construction of the ancient pagoda in China was pushed to a climax. But generally speaking, since the Yuan Dynasty, the number of pagodas has been greatly reduced, but the construction of pagodas is declining. Although all kinds of Wenfeng Pagoda and Fengshui Pagoda, which have little to do with Buddhism, are of great use, they are mostly shoddy and have almost no aesthetic value.
Third, the components of the ancient pagoda.
Although there are many kinds of ancient pagodas in China with different building materials and construction methods, their basic structures are basically the same. The ancient pagoda consists of underground palace, tower foundation, tower body and tower gate.
1. Underground Palace
The underground palace is also called "Dragon Palace" and "Dragon Cave". This is not available in palaces, temples, pavilions and other buildings. Why is there this part of the structure? This is because the pagoda buried relics. In India, cultural relics are not buried deep underground, but hidden in towers. After it was introduced into China, it was combined with the traditional deep burial system in China, resulting in the underground palace. To build a tower, we must first build an underground palace to bury relics and funerary objects. This is similar to the underground palace of China's imperial mausoleum. Of course, the underground palace of the tower is far less than the scale of the imperial mausoleum, and there are far fewer things buried with it. The main thing in the underground palace of the tower is a stone letter. There are layers of boxes in stone letters, and there are also small coffins made of stone or gold, silver and jade. One of them used to be a place to put relics. In addition, there are various objects, scriptures and Buddha statues buried in the underground palace. The underground palace is a square or hexagonal, octagonal and circular basement made of masonry. Most underground palaces are deeply buried, and only a few are semi-underground.
The underground palace of Jingzhi Temple in Dingzhou, Hebei Province, also known as the "relic pavilion". It is located in the middle of the tower foundation, about 60 cm deep from the existing ground. There is a stone carving on the roof. There is a square hole under the roof, which is the top of the underground relic pavilion. The plane of the underground palace is square, but it is not very regular. To the south of the underground palace, the door is opened as an arch coupon. There are murals on the walls of the underground palace, which are missionary statues of the heavenly king, the emperor, the Brahma heavenly king, the boy and the maid. The memorial tablet of "Sakyamuni relic" is written on the front of the north wall, and the patterns of worship by ten disciples are painted on both sides. The columns, archways, sandalwood, railings and other colorful paintings of the relic pavilion are like new ones, which are works of the Song Dynasty that can't be seen in the ground buildings.
Once upon a time, because people didn't understand the structure of the underground palace under the tower, there was a superstition that a tower was a "sea eye", so the legend of "Zhenhai Tower" appeared. In fact, the underground palaces of some towers have been damaged for a long time, or they are not well waterproof and the groundwater is full. If you accidentally find this situation, it will be mistakenly called "sea eye".
After the establishment of People's Republic of China (PRC), many underground palaces and relics buried in them were found during the cleaning and maintenance of ancient pagodas, such as Kanluoji Pagoda in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, Tiger Hill in Suzhou, Shengxiang Pagoda in front of Yellow Crane Tower in Wuchang, Hubei, the Twin Towers of Qingshou Temple in West Chang 'an Street in Beijing, Wanjin Pagoda in Nong 'an, Jilin, and Chihiro Pagoda in Chongsheng Temple in Dali, Yunnan, etc. They provide a lot of material data for studying the shape and structure of ancient pagodas.
2. Taki
The tower foundation is the lower foundation of the whole tower, covering the underground palace. Many towers can reach the underground palace from the center of the first floor of the tower. Early tower foundations were generally low, only a few tens of centimeters. For example, the two existing pagodas before the Tang Dynasty are Song Yue Temple Pagoda in the Northern Wei Dynasty and Licheng Temple Gate Pagoda in the Sui Dynasty. In the Tang Dynasty, in order to make it more prominent, some towers built tall abutments under it, such as the Little Wild Goose Pagoda and the Big Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi 'an in the Tang Dynasty. In the Tang Dynasty, the tower foundation of the pavilion-style tower also began to develop into a tall pedestal, such as the boating Zen Master Tower in Shanxi and the Dragon and Tiger Tower in Shentong Temple in Licheng, Jinan.
After the Tang Dynasty, the foundation of the tower developed rapidly and was clearly divided into abutment and pedestal. Abutment is a relatively low tower foundation under the early tower. On the pedestal, a part of the pedestal specially supporting the tower body is added, which is called pedestal. In terms of architectural artistic effect, it makes the tower more majestic and prominent. Abutment, generally low, has no decoration. The pedestal has developed greatly and become increasingly rich, becoming the most gorgeous part of the whole tower.
In the development process of pedestal, especially in Liao and Jin dynasties, the pedestal of dense eaves tower is the most prominent. The base of Liaojin Pagoda is mostly "Sumitomo" shape, which means stability. Take Sumitomo of Tianning Temple Tower in Beijing as an example. Sumitomo Hotel is octagonal and built on a low pedestal. It has two waist layers. In the first corset, there are six small niches on each side, in which lion heads are carved. The niches are separated by carved columns. The second time, five niches were built at the lower part of the waist, in which Buddha statues were carved. The pillars between the niches are carved in fiery red. The upper part is arched. The bucket arch supports an extremely fine brick railing. The balustrade is the first tower supported by the three-layer lotus. The height of the whole Mount Sumi is about one-fifth of the height of the tower. It becomes an important part of the whole tower.
Later, the bases of other types of towers became more and more magnificent. The base of Lama Tower is very high, accounting for most of the whole tower, and its height accounts for about one third of the total height. The pedestal of the King Kong throne tower has become the main part of the tower body, and the seat itself is much larger than the upper tower. The seats under the crossing tower are also much higher than the tower above. The great development of the base part of the tower is closely related to the fact that China has always attached importance to the role of the base in the tradition of ancient buildings. It not only ensures the firmness and stability of the superstructure, but also receives the magnificent effect of art.
3. Tower body
The tower body is the main body of the ancient pagoda structure. Due to the different architectural types of the tower, the form of the tower body is also different. Different types of towers are divided according to the shape of the tower body.
From the internal structure of the tower, there are two main types: solid and hollow. The interior of the solid tower is paved with bricks and stones, and also compacted and filled with soil. Vertical or partially solid towers are also filled with wooden bones to increase the overall connection of the tower or enhance the bearing capacity of selected parts, but the structure is still relatively simple. Generally speaking, hollow towers can be boarded. The tower structure of this kind of tower is more complicated and requires higher construction technology. Hollow tower bodies can generally be divided into the following categories:
Wooden floor tower. It prevailed in the late Han, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. The structure is generally like this: the inside of the tower is an empty cylinder from top to bottom, and there are three columns on each side of the tower. Beams and arches are placed on columns to support the upper floors. Each floor has a selection of flat seats and balustrades, so you can look around. There is also a tower eaves on each floor, just like the general wooden buildings. There are stairs and floors inside, which can be boarded. Pure wood structure, brick wall wooden stairs, wood floor, brick wall wooden eaves, wooden flat seats, such as the tower body of Yingxian wooden tower in Shanxi Province, is this form.
Brick-walled wooden floor tower, also known as hollow cylindrical tower. The interior seems to be an empty pipe, and most of the early pavilion or dense-eaves brick towers are of this structure. For example, the Big Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi, the Little Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi, the Chen Palace Pagoda in Lin 'an in Hangzhou, the Twin Towers of Luohanyuan in Suzhou and the Song Yue Temple Pagoda in Dengfeng.
Brick-wood mixed tower body. Brick, tower eaves, flat seats, railings and other parts are all wood structures. This kind of structure was very popular in pagodas in Song Dynasty, such as Shanghai Songjiang Square Pagoda, Hangzhou Pagoda of Six Harmonies, Suzhou Ruiguang Pagoda and Suzhou North Temple Pagoda.
Wooden column tower. The tower has a central column, and the early wooden towers also had many central columns, which went straight from top to bottom. There are no ancient pagodas with such towers now. The tower of Tianning Temple in Zhengding, Hebei Province is a semi-wooden structure, and the wooden column in the tower is only half-length, only at the upper part of the tower. But this ancient pagoda with only half a carpenter's pillar is rare and precious in the country. This kind of object shows incontrovertibly that this kind of tower without big wooden columns exists in ancient pagoda buildings in China. With the increase of tower materials and the development of building technology, the central columns of some ancient pagodas have been changed from wood to masonry structure. Shaanxi Fufeng Famen Temple Tower, Henan Kaifeng Youguo Temple Tower and Sichuan Leshan Lingyun Temple Tower are such examples.
Masonry tower core column tower body. All made of bricks, the center of the tower is a large brick pillar from top to bottom. This tower structure is the product of the development of ancient masonry structure in China. For example, Youguo Temple Tower in Kaifeng, Henan, Lingyun Temple Tower in Leshan, Sichuan, Famen Temple Tower in Fufeng, Shaanxi, Baoding Mountain Tower in Dazu, Sichuan, etc. , mostly Song and Ming architecture, the level is quite high.
High tower. The tower is made of masonry to build a high platform, which spirals up from the brick ladder inside the platform or climbs to the top from the outside of the seat. What I'm talking about here is mainly the King Kong Throne Tower. The King Kong Throne Tower of Beijing Zhenjue Temple, Beijing Biyun Temple and Hohhot Cideng Temple are such examples.
The bowl covers the tower. In other words, the main body of Lama Tower is shaped like a bottle. After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the architect added a flame door in the middle of the tower belly, which looked like a small niche.
Among the existing ancient pagodas in China, some towers have special shapes: some add multi-storey pavilions on the bowl, some combine pavilions, bowls and pavilions into one, and some towers are pen-shaped, spherical and cylindrical, with various types and rich colors.
4. Tasha
Tasha, commonly known as the top of the tower, is the top of the tower. There are many ancient pagodas in China, and the shapes and building materials of each tower and pagoda are different. However, no matter what material the pagoda brake is made of, no matter what its form is, they are all important and the highest part of the ancient pagoda. In ancient India, stupas only existed as the appearance of "drawing waves and blocking waves", with simple structure and uncomplicated decoration. But in China, it was combined with the original pavilion-style buildings in China, and the construction of pagodas has made great progress, and its structure and form have become more complicated, more elaborate and more beautiful. From the architectural structure, the tower gate is the top cover of the knot. Tower sluice plays an important role in fixing rafters, tiles and other parts, and preventing rain leakage. From the perspective of architectural art, pagodas are often exquisite and ingenious, giving people a detached and lofty aesthetic pleasure. Therefore, people regard the "temple" of pagodas as another name for Buddhist temples, which are also called temples and ancient temples.
As far as the structure of the pagoda is concerned, it is a complete ancient pagoda itself. The tower brake consists of a brake seat, a brake body, a brake top and a brake lever.
The brake seat is the foundation of the brake, which covers the top of the tower, presses the rafters, the surface plates, the rear ends of the corner beams and the tiles, and wraps the brake lever. Most of the brake seats are sumeru seats, lotus seats and honeysuckle leaf seats, and some of them are plain platform seats to support the brake body. In some brake seats, there are caves similar to the underground palace, called brake holes. The brake point can be used to worship Buddhist relics and store offerings such as scriptures. Yunnan Dali Chihiro Pagoda and Beijing Miaoying Temple Pagoda are such examples.
The main image feature of the brake body is a ring running through the brake lever, which is called phase wheel, also known as gold plate and dew bearing plate. "Doing Good" said: "People look up to it, so the clouds are in the same phase." It can be seen that the brake body is a sign of looking up at the tower to play the role of respecting Buddha. Generally, there are many and large phase wheels in the big tower, and few and small phase wheels in the lower tower. In the early tower system, there was no fixed formula for phase wheels, some as many as ten, and some as few as three or five. For example, the original wooden tower of Yongning Temple in Luoyang has a triple wheel. There are two earlier pagodas, Simen Pagoda and Song Yue Pagoda, with five rounds and seven rounds respectively. After that, the number of phases gradually formed the law of one, three, five, seven, nine, eleven and thirteen. Most Lama temples use thirteen-phase wheels. Therefore, people call this part "thirteen days". A canopy, also called a treasure cover, is placed on the phase wheel as the crown of the phase wheel brake body.
The top of the brake is the whole tower or spire, above the treasure cover. Generally, it is made of the moon and orbs, some are made of flames and orbs, some are placed on the flames, and some are placed in the flames. To avoid the word "fire", some people call it "hookah".
The brake lever is the central shaft that runs through the tower brake. All parts of the metal tower gate are sleeved on the gate rod, and all parts of the tower gate are connected in series and supported by the gate rod. It is a relatively short brick tower gate, and there are also wooden or metal gate rods. According to Buddhist scriptures, the brake handle is also known as the brake post, the golden brake and the watch brake. The structure of the brake lever can be inserted into the top of the tower with a wooden rod or an iron rod; If the tower gate is very high, it is to insert large wooden branches on the top of the first floor or the second floor or the third floor. The long brake lever is called the brake post. Some brake posts are connected with the center of the tower and reach directly above the underground palace at the bottom of the tower.
The structure of the tower brake mentioned above is representative. In addition, towers of different times, different types and different building materials have also changed. There are three, five, seven and nine metal balls in series on the brake lever as tower brakes, such as the twin towers of Zhongxing Temple in Beizhen, Liaoning Province; Some pagodas have a huge treasure top on their towers, such as Tianning Temple Pagoda in Beijing. Baoding has different forms, such as circle, square and octagon. The roof of Yinchuan Sea Pagoda is square gourd-shaped, or garlic-shaped, which may be influenced by Islamic architecture. Guangzhou Huaisheng Temple Light Pagoda is another case, and the pagoda has become a weather vane, which is completely different from the stupa.
Fourth, the building materials of the ancient pagoda.
From the literature records, grotto carvings and murals, we can know that the development of the tower has experienced a history from pavilion-style, pavilion-style to dense eaves-style to various tower shapes. Temples and pagodas are inseparable, and pagodas were the main ones in early temples. At that time, the layout of Baima Temple, the first Buddhist temple in China, was centered on a large square wooden tower surrounded by a porch hall. This pagoda-based layout of temples and pagodas came directly from pagodas in India, and remained basically unchanged from the Han, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties to the early Sui and Tang Dynasties. Luoyang once described Yongning Temple as follows: "Yongning Temple was built on the order of Hu Taihou in the first year of Xiping (AD 5 16) ... There are nine floating figures in the temple, which are made of wood. There is a Buddhist temple in the north of the tower ... There are more than 1000 monks' houses in the whole temple ... The temple is surrounded by a corridor wall with a gate on each side. "This record can generally explain the style of early temple tower architecture.
However, with the upgrading of Buddhist prayer flags, temples and pagodas were juxtaposed first, and then pagodas were gradually discharged from temples or built next to them. This change began in the Tang Dynasty, mainly due to the changes in the layout of Buddhist temples caused by the development of Buddhism in China and the influence of the original courtyard layout in China. When foreign buildings come to China, they will be endowed with the color of China and become buildings with China characteristics. In addition, since Buddhism spread widely, many officials and businessmen have turned their palaces, palaces and palaces into temples. It is conceivable that the temple was rebuilt by the government, and the layout of Buddhist temples naturally changed.
Because of China's vast territory and numerous ethnic groups, the layout of temples and towers is ever-changing and sometimes repetitive. In some dynasties and individual areas after the Tang Dynasty, there were also some examples in which the pagoda was the main body of the temple. For example, the Buddha Palace Temple in Yingxian County, Shanxi Province, was built in the second year of Liao and Qing Dynasties (AD 1056), with a tower in front of the temple and a main hall behind it. This layout retains the layout of the early temples and pagodas dominated by pagodas. However, the layout with the main hall as the center of the temple has become the mainstream, and the status of the tower in the temple is far less than before.
Just like other buildings, the improvement of building materials and technology has prompted the structure and form of ancient pagodas to change constantly. According to historical documents, the earliest pagoda in China was a wooden pagoda. From the pagoda of Baima Temple, the first Buddhist temple in the Eastern Han Dynasty, to the pagoda of Xuzhou Futu Temple at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, they are all wooden pagodas. The famous tower of Yongning Temple in Luoyang, Northern Wei Dynasty, "covers an area of thousands of feet, and the golden urn and golden plate are hung for thirty times ...", which is known as "the best in the world". The wooden tower has strong earthquake resistance and is easy to climb and overlook, but it has a fatal weakness-it is easy to catch fire. This weakness has increasingly hindered the preservation and development of ancient pagodas, and people began to build pagodas with bricks and stones with good fire resistance. The earliest known brick tower is the three-story floating map of Taikang Temple in Galand. The earliest existing brick pagoda is the Song Yue Temple Pagoda in the Northern Wei Dynasty (AD 520). This tower is 40 meters high and has a beautiful appearance. Although it lasted for more than 1000 years, it still stands tall. The earliest existing stone pagoda is Simen Pagoda in Licheng, Shandong Province, which was built in the seventh year of Sui Dynasty (AD 6 1 1). Its weight and height are very small, probably because the stone is heavy and difficult to carry.
By the Tang Dynasty, the building technology of brick towers was considerable, and two tower types, pavilion tower and dense eaves tower, were successfully built. Pavilion-style masonry towers reached their peak in the Tang Dynasty, such as the Dragon and Tiger Pagoda in Licheng, Shandong Province. The tower is beautifully carved and is a masterpiece in the history of architecture. The high-rise masonry tower reached its peak in the Song, Liao and Jin Dynasties, and it is expected that the enemy tower, Little Wild Goose Pagoda and Chihiro Pagoda will reach the first-class level. At this time, there was a great development in the tower, which was generally changed from square in Tang Dynasty to hexagon and octagon. This development has solved two major problems: First, the seismic performance has been improved. Under the same conditions, the degree of earthquake damage of polygonal masonry is much lower than that of square masonry. Second, the polygonal tower expands the view of climbing the tower.
Since then, people have used this solid and precious metal to build metal towers. The East West Tower of Guangxiao Temple in Guangzhou was cast in the Southern Han Dynasty in the Five Dynasties, and it is the earliest preserved tower. The copper tower in Emei Mountain, Sichuan is famous all over the world. In addition, the Golden Pagoda, the Silver Pagoda, the Pearl Pagoda, the Ivory Pagoda and the Enamel Pagoda are all made of expensive materials, which shows that the Buddha's light of the pagoda is overflowing and colorful.
In addition, the glazed pagoda in Ming and Qing Dynasties is also the most colorful building in China. Coloured glaze is an important building material in China classical architecture, which existed as early as 1000 years ago. But it was still widely used in Ming and Qing Dynasties.
The development history of ancient pagoda building materials is also the development history of China building materials, from low to high, from simple to complex. The ancient pagodas in Song, Liao and Jin Dynasties developed the characteristics of solid masonry structure, fire prevention, flexible wood and easy processing, and created brick-wood mixed materials. Various materials, each with its own strengths, make the building more beautiful and durable. These numerous creations come from the wisdom of skilled craftsmen.