Changqing Temple Pagoda

　　   Introduction

　　   Changqing Temple Pagoda (also known as Ten Temples Pagoda) was donated and built by Zhang Yingzhou from Huangbei, She County, in the second year of the Chonghe era during the Northern Song Dynasty (1119 AD), and has a history of nearly nine hundred years.

　　   Changqing Temple Pagoda is a solid seven-story square pagoda of the dense-eave style, constructed with brick and stone. The pagoda has an almost square floor plan, with each side of the ground floor measuring 5.28 meters and a total height of 23.1 meters. The base is a platform-style foundation, built with five layers of square Sumeru pedestals made of stone, featuring a waist band 66 cm high, with intervening and corner pillars. The body of the pagoda consists of seven solid brick stories. The first story is relatively tall, with each successive level decreasing slightly in height, and each tier has outward-extending eaves. The ground floor includes a wooden corridor, with stone eave pillars spaced 4.33 meters apart. The four sides of the pagoda feature arched gateways, inside of which are stone-carved lotus petal Buddha pedestals. From the second floor upward, the central parts of each wall are built with blue bricks forming recessed window frames, while each corner has semi-exposed square wooden-like pillars resembling dougong brackets. The pagoda walls are coated with white lime and painted with vivid, eye-catching Buddhist figure designs. Each eave is constructed with layers of projecting blue bricks, interspersed with five offset rows of tooth-like bricks, topped with wooden eaves, cylindrical tiles, and flat tiles. The top of the pagoda is adorned with a copper gourd-shaped finial, with a sharp spire pointing upward. Beneath each flying eave corner hangs an iron wind chime; when the wind blows, the bells ring, spreading a serene Buddhist sound far and wide. The pagoda stands beside the mountain and river, its reflection shimmering in the waters of the Lanxi River — delicate and graceful. The Tang Dynasty poet Du Mu praised it: “High chimes sound a few times in autumn, shaking jade; the cleared river stretches a thousand li, silver across the dawn.” Another poem reads: “The ancient temple soars high to touch the azure sky, spring breezes carry chanting all day long. Square stone pagoda meets the heavens, willows line the long dike far across the stream. Two perilous peaks vie from the vale, a winding path halfway to a bridge. At times, clear tones drift beyond the railing — it’s the evening woodcutters singing from the southern hill.”

　　   Changqing Temple Pagoda is the only remaining structure among the original Thirty-Four Branch Temples of the Ten Temples of West Dry Mountain. After renovations across several dynasties, it still retains characteristics of the Song Dynasty. It is now listed as a provincial-level cultural relic under protection and has been incorporated into the restoration and reconstruction plan of the “Taiping Xingguo Temple,” becoming a local landmark building.