Buddha True Lynx Yiluoni Pagoda

Buddha True Lynx Yiluoni Pagoda

Buddha True Lynx Yiluoni Pagoda is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

Buddha True Lynx Yiluoni Pagoda is located in Tarcun Village, Xuanhua County, about twenty kilometers southwest of Xuanhua City, Zhangjiakou. Situated in a hilly area, it is a village with over a thousand households.

Traveling southwest from Xuanhua City along a rural road, as you enter the entrance of Tarcun Village, you can see from afar a majestic and spectacular pagoda — this is the Yiluoni Pagoda, a key cultural relics protection unit of Hebei Province. The pagoda was built in the seventh year of the Tianqing era of the Liao Dynasty (1117 AD). Its base is a hexagonal stone platform, 1.9 meters high and 33 meters in circumference. The body of the pagoda consists of thirteen stories of solid blue brick, modeled after wooden structures, with six angular sides, and is 20 meters tall with a circumference of about six meters. Each angular eave originally had a wind chime. The lower part of the pagoda is inlaid with a square brick engraved in intaglio with the text: “Buddha True Lynx Yiluoni Pagoda” and “In the seventh year of Tianqing.”

According to folklore, a nun who was begging alms passed away here and was later cremated, producing “five-colored relics.” A pagoda was then built to bury them. “Buddha True” refers to the true body of the Buddha. “Lynx” is synonymous with relics, also called śarīra. “Relics” is a transliteration from the ancient Sanskrit language of India, referring to pearl-like ashes formed after cremation. The character “Ni” is an ancient clerical script form meaning “nun” (a female Buddhist monastic; a female Taoist practitioner is called a female Taoist or Daoist nun). In Indian Buddhist scriptures, there is the “Yiluoni Sutra,” where “luo,” “yiluo,” and “luo” are homophones. The term “pagoda” or “stupa” (a general term), with larger structures called pagodas and smaller ones called stupas, are all derived from Sanskrit. Typically, the upper part stores scriptures, while the lower part holds the ashes of eminent monks or nuns. The inscriptions on this pagoda mean that it contains the “Yiluoni Sutra” and the ashes of a nun below.

In May 2013, Buddha True Lynx Yiluoni Pagoda was announced as part of the seventh batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units.

Further Reading:

· Fourth Batch of Hebei Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units

· Seventh Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units