Pagoda is a common oriental traditional building with specific form and style, and it’s easy to be seen in most of Asian countries. The word of "pagoda" derives from the Sanskrit word bhagavat "holy". Pagoda is always used as a place collecting sarira, Buddha, Buddhist Scriptures, etc. As a kind of building having ties to Buddhism, it’s also called Buddlist Pagoda.
Among the 3000 existing pagodas in China, there are all-timber pagoda, brick pagoda, stone pagoda, bronze pagoda and iron pagoda. Buddhism came to China during the Eastern Han Dyansty. The oldest temple on Chinese ground is the White Horse Monastery in Luoyang. A pagoda can also be seen as a symbol for the temple.
Xian Wild Goose Pagoda, Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple in Dali are among those most famous buildings in China and are representers of such an architecture art.
Pagoda is also the main integrating part of the Buddhist architecture, with varied styles and strong local flavours. Pagoda followed Buddhism into China around the first century, and developed into pavilion-like pagoda on which one can view scenery after immediate combination with traditional Chinese architecture.
Most Chinese pagodas are multistoried ones. Early pagodas were usually wooden and had quadrangle, hexangle, ocatagonal and twelve sided ichnographies. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, pagodas tended to be stone and brick. In the Liao Dynasty, solid pagoda appeared. After, in the Song, Liao and Jin dynasties, flower pagodas were introduced which were decorated with assorted carved flowers, honeycombed shrines, animals and Buddha and disciple sculptures, looked like flowers. Generally speaking, pagodas became more and more decorative.
Though there are various types of pagodas, they have a common structure, a palace underground. The most famous palace underground lies at the Famen Temple in
Xian, Shaanxi.
Chinese pagoda has nothing in common with the old Indian stupa. It seems also to be very different from the buildings of southern Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.
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