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The
Twin Pagodas of Songxing
Temple |
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The
Songyue Temple Pagoda
on the south side
of the Songshan Mountain
of Henan Province,
got its name from
the Songyue Temple.
Songyue Temple was
established in A.D.519
(the 2nd year of Shen’gui
Era during reign of
Emperor Xiaoming of
the North Wei Dynasty),
and the Songyue Temple
Pagoda was built up
in the following year.
The present Songyue
Temple has been broken
except the well preserved
Songyue Temple Pagoda,
which is a dense-eaves
ancient-pagoda made
of bricks with the
longest history in
our country.
The Songyue Temple
Pagoda adopts the
short form of hollow
walls, and the design
of the pagoda’s form
is transcendental
and has great originality.
Furthermore, its dodecagonal
external outline is
the unique pattern
in China; while the
center of the pagoda
room is an octagon
with equal angel.
The external width
of bottom layer is
10.6 meters in diameter,
and the pagoda room
is 7.6 and 41 meters
in width and height
respectively. Meanwhile,
the underpart only
makes up 1/3 of the
full height of the
pagoda, and has four
gates open towards
east, west, north,
south respectively.
On the main gate is
an ornamental circular
arch. For the other
eight sides, there
are corner posts with
rough lines and brick
carvings of lion with
primitive artistry
of wielding the knife
decorated. The upside
is four to five layers
of dense eaves. There
are 492 small windows
in the short wall
of eaves, but most
of them are ornamental
dead windows. As the
daylight window of
upside, there are
four real wickets
only in the wall of
7th layer, which has
created the wonderful
effect of one line
of daylight. Further
up, there are lotus
flower foundation
of stone carving,
seven-layer rhombic
wheel, circular pearl
assembled together
above the fifteen
layers of dense eaves.
With its firm pendentives,
the upside of the
pagoda is crimson,
majestic, and subtle;
while the underpart,
with primitive sculptures,
is white, clean, and
rough. Having a view
to the whole pagoda
of neat style, you
can get comeliness
from imposing, and
gentleness from power.
This is just a typical
ancient pagoda construction
style of the North
Wei Dynasty.
If climbing the Songshan
Mountain, surely you
should mount the highest
peak of the Middle
Mountain which is
1494 meters high above
sea level - Mt. Junji.
Scanned widely, wreathing
mist and continuous
ridges will appear
in your eyes. As described
in a Wuyan Shi (a
kind of poem with
five Chinese characters
in a line) of Ouyang
Xiu,
“You can not get to
your look, and you
also feel hard in
your walk.
A path appears in
forest, while thousand
stones lay below wind.
Mist seems unclear,
but sunshine sets
on top.”
No wonder have the
literators honored
it as “so high that
reaching the sky”,
“no mountains higher
than this one”, and
even Emperor Qianlong
can’t help writing
poem and establishing
stone tablet here
interestedly after
his visit of Mt. Junji.
The micro-sight of
the Songyue Temple
Pagoda in the Splendid
China Park is built
by copying the pattern
of Songyue Temple
Pagoda of Dengfeng
City, Henan Province
due to the proportion
of 1:15. In order
to make the micro-sight
be a beautiful landscape
and a lifelike model,
we have sedulously
tried to create a
beautiful surrounding
of amplectant mountains.
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