Xiude Temple Pagoda

Xiude Temple Pagoda

(Photography: Jing Si Zhai · Yu Yue)

Xiude Temple Pagoda is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

Xiude Temple Pagoda is located 300 meters south of Beiyue Temple in Quyang County, Hebei Province.

The pagoda has an octagonal floor plan, seven stories in total, and a height of 32 meters. Its design is unique. The second level of the pagoda body is particularly tall, breaking away from traditional styles such as the pavilion style and the dense-eave style. It features 110 small pagoda niches built along its perimeter, presenting a Huayan (Flower Garland) realm of "interpenetration of the one and the many, integration of the large and the small, infinite layers, and unobstructed interrelatedness." The architectural community refers to it as a "flower pagoda." The "flower pagoda" is essentially a reflection of the Sinicization of Buddhist beliefs in architecture, and structures of this type are indeed very rare today.

The age of the pagoda is indicated by an inscribed stone tablet embedded in the pagoda: “On the eighth day of the fourth month in the third year of the Tianxi era of the Great Song, villagers from Shuidouyan and other villages jointly constructed the first level of the reliquary pagoda.” This shows that the construction of the pagoda predates the Northern Song Dynasty.

In 1953, a batch of Han Dynasty white marble Buddhist statues carved from stone was unearthed beneath the foundation of Xiude Temple Pagoda. Among the dated statues from Xiude Temple, those from the Sui Dynasty's Daye era are the most numerous, totaling 48 figures, followed by those from the Northern Qi Dynasty's Tianbao era, totaling 33 figures. The subject matter of the Xiude Temple stone statues evolved from a focus on worship of Shakyamuni and Maitreya Bodhisattva to an emphasis on worship of Amitabha Buddha and Bodhisattvas. The unearthed statues from Xiude Temple Pagoda are now housed in the Palace Museum and the Hebei Provincial Museum.

In 2006, Xiude Temple Pagoda, as an ancient building from the Song Dynasty, was approved by the State Council to be included in the sixth batch of the National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit list.

Further Reading:

· Second Batch of Hebei Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units

· Sixth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units