Menglong Pagoda

Menglong Pagoda

Menglong Pagoda is a cultural relic protection unit of Jiangsu Province.

Menglong Pagoda is located to the north of Menglong Village, Baota Village, Baota Town (formerly Xinzhuang Township), Jianhu County. It is a brick pagoda of the closely-eaved pavilion style. Only three stories and eight sides remain today, with a height of approximately 16.7 meters and base side length of about 2 meters. The waist eaves on each level still show several layers of corbelled bricks and stone corner beams. The ground floor has a door facing south, while the two floors above each have four doors, arranged in a staggered vertical alignment. At a height of 2 meters inside the pagoda, there is a brick-built domed ceiling, with a Buddhist niche in the northern part and a staircase in the middle that once allowed visitors to ascend in a spiral—though this has now been destroyed.

In 1934, the Provincial Cultural Relics Management Committee conducted an exploration here and discovered an underground palace 42 centimeters below the ground floor’s floor surface. The underground palace is octagonal, with each side measuring 55 centimeters and a depth of 147 centimeters. It has a passageway (shaodao) facing south, which is 214 centimeters long. On the northern side of the underground palace is a Sumeru pedestal, 69 centimeters high and 39 centimeters long, atop which sits a stone casket measuring 34.4 centimeters in height, 65.7 centimeters in length, and 35.2 centimeters in width. The top of the lid bears an engraved inscription in regular script reading “Reliquary Casket.” Inside the casket were over a hundred copper coins of the “Taiping Tongbao” type, as well as a silver coffin wrapped in yellow silk. The silver coffin measures 9 centimeters in length, 5.5 centimeters in width, and 6.7 centimeters in height, with faint inscriptions on the lid reading “... Yuanfeng Eighth Year ...”. Inside were “sarira (Buddhist relics)”, agate, glass (crystal), “red beads (jade or similar stones)”, and several plant stems.

The 1908 edition of the Funing County Annals states that Menglong Pagoda was located in front of Jinghui Temple and was built in the third year of the Wude era of the Tang Dynasty (620). However, based on current analysis of the pagoda’s structure, style, and construction techniques, it is believed to have been rebuilt during the Ming Dynasty. Yet, 74 centimeters below the underground palace, wooden planks were found, and beneath them were several wooden piles with stone blocks rammed in between—a foundation method commonly used in the Song Dynasty. Therefore, the pagoda was likely originally built in the Song Dynasty. The reliquary casket found inside was taken out during the Ming reconstruction and then placed back into the underground palace. This pagoda provides valuable insight into the region’s religious history and the structure of Ming Dynasty brick pagoda underground palaces. The unearthed “Reliquary Casket” is a Song Dynasty artifact of high historical and artistic value.

On October 22, 2002, Menglong Pagoda was announced as part of the fifth group of Cultural Relic Protection Units of Jiangsu Province.

Baota Town: Baota Town is located on the northern border of Jianhu County and is named after the Tang Dynasty-era Menglong Pagoda within its territory. The town covers a total area of 50.8 square kilometers, with arable land of 3,132.8 hectares and a total population of 30,169. It administers 10 administrative villages and 2 neighborhood committees. In 2003, the town achieved a gross domestic product of 150 million yuan, fiscal revenue of 4.082 million yuan, and per capita net income of 3,640 yuan.

In recent years, the entire town has focused on the overall goal of “accelerating development as the theme, advancing projects as the main thread, and prioritizing large-scale industry, specialty agriculture, and diversified tertiary industries.” ... More details about Baota Town++

Further reading:

· Fifth Batch of Cultural Relic Protection Units of Jiangsu Province