Dongkou Wenchang Pagoda

Dongkou Wenchang Pagoda

Dongkou Wenchang Pagoda is a cultural relic protection unit of Hunan Province.

Wenchang Pagoda

Dating back to the Qing Dynasty, it is located in Chengguan Town, Dongkou County, Hunan Province. The Wenchang Pagoda is majestic and spectacular, and is regarded as a perfect masterpiece of ancient pagoda architectural art.

The pagoda was built in the first year of the Tongzhi reign (1862), completed in the sixth year of Tongzhi (1868), and a stele was erected in the fourth year of the Guangxu reign (1878) to record the event.

The Wenchang Pagoda is a pavilion-style brick pagoda, seven tiers and eight sides, with an octagonal spire and an iron gourd-shaped finial. It stands 41 meters tall. The base is constructed from long strip-shaped bluestone slabs; each side is 4.67 meters long, with a perimeter of about 37 meters and a height of 1.7 meters. The pagoda body has seven levels, each featuring doors, windows, and overlapping eaves, with the eave edges decorated with colorful paintings of landscapes and figures. The eaves of the first to sixth tiers are covered with small green tiles, while the top is covered with iron tiles. Each tier of eaves has eight soaring “aoyu” (mythical fish) corners adorned with iron bells; when the wind blows, the bells tinkle melodiously. The door on the first level is a decorative brick archway with double eaves and soaring corners, and overlapping eave edges. The stone plaque above the door reads “Relying on Sun and Moonlight.” The couplet on the door says: “Turquoise waters flow around, the land seems like Penglai Isle; Azure clouds rise straight, as if one ascends to the celestial realm.”

There are two spiral passageways inside the pagoda leading all the way to the top, and each level’s chamber contains a shrine. The floor of the second level’s central chamber features an engraved double-fish design. From the third level upwards, the domed ceilings of the chambers, as well as the corridors and gateways, are adorned with hundreds of murals depicting figures, flowers, birds, double fish, the Eight Trigrams, and Taiji diagrams, along with over a hundred poems—features rarely seen in brick pagodas.

There are nine stone steles inside the pagoda, including two construction steles erected in the fourth year of the Guangxu reign (1878). These are inscribed in regular script, recording the pagoda’s construction date, the lead organizers, and the amount of silver used. The other seven steles contain poems and inscriptions, featuring calligraphy styles such as regular script, clerical script, running script, and cursive script. Their content praises the Wenchang Pavilion and the surrounding scenery, holding value for both calligraphy and historical research.

On January 4, 1996, the People's Government of Hunan Province designated it as a provincial-level cultural relic protection unit, with the serial number 32-8.