The Liao Dynasty is a dynasty that worships Buddha extremely in the history of the mainland, and the construction of pagodas in the territory is very popular, and there are still a large number of ancient pagoda remains.
The Liao tower is mainly the Liao-style dense eaves tower created in the middle and late Liao Dynasty, and there are a small number of pavilion-style towers built in the middle of the Liao Dynasty, as well as a special shape of the flower tower. But what is little known is that in addition to the above three types, there is also a kind of covered bowl tower.
The structure of a bowl tower and the time it appeared in Middle-earth
As one of the main types of ancient towers in the mainland, the ancestor of the bowl tower is the ancient Indian slope, which is generally a structure of a phase wheel erected on top of a hemispherical bowl body. The name of the bowl comes from its round tower body, which is shaped like an inverted bowl, commonly known as "tower belly". The multi-layer phase wheel erected on the "tower belly" is conical, commonly known as the "tower neck", and the phase wheel is the tower brake.
In the past, the traditional view was that the bowl-covered pagoda appeared in Middle-earth during the Yuan Dynasty with the spread of Tibetan Buddhism, and that the bowl-covered pagoda was equivalent to the lama pagoda. For example, the White Pagoda of Miaoying Temple in Beijing (Figure 1) was built in the eighth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1271) by the Nepalese craftsman Anigo.
This view is so influential that many sages have made erroneous inferences about some non-lama pagodas that are topped by a bowl and a bowl, such as the Guanyin Temple pagoda in Jixian County. For example, Mr. Liang Sicheng in his 1932 "Jixian Guanyin Temple White Pagoda Record" believes that the Jixian White Pagoda "was built in the late Ming Dynasty, and the upper part of the tower must have collapsed, but only the first and second floors remained." And the third floor is only half left, so on the third floor and increase its height, so that it is a round belly seat, and the above is completely rebuilt after the late Ming Dynasty. The octagonal part of the round belly may be the uncollapsed part of the original thing, and it is not known whether it is the sixth floor of the original tower in terms of its size and location. Fangshan Yunju Temple Tower, also with the Liao Pagoda lower layer, and the upper crown of the Lama Tower, its phenomenon is quite similar to this tower". There is also the Japanese scholar Murata Jiro, in his article "Introduction to the Pagoda of the Liao Dynasty", he also suspected that the covered bowl part was caused by the maintenance of later generations, but he was not sure.
Due to the limitations of various objective conditions at that time, the information channels of the sages were not as good as those of today, in fact, the structure of the bowl wheel appeared in Middle-earth long ago. Now there are a large number of pavilion type covered bowl phase wheel top relief tower in the Sui and Tang dynasties of the Northern Dynasties, and the structure of this kind of tower exists in kind in the Anyang Baoshan Lingquan Temple of the Northern Qi Dynasty. In addition, the Baozheng Seal Scripture Tower in the south of the Five Dynasties and the Two Song Dynasty also has the element of covering the bowl and closing the top. Even the Lama Pagoda has the famous 108 Pagoda of the Bronze Gorge of Western Xia, which was built before the Yuan Dynasty.
The shape of the two Liao Dynasty covered bowl towers
1. The knowledge and understanding of the Liao Dynasty covered bowl tower by the predecessors
In the Liao Dynasty, a type of covered bowl tower was also built. The most typical and well-known is precisely the white pagoda of Guanyin Temple in Jixian County. However, people have not paid enough attention to this type of covered bowl tower, and there have been serious misunderstandings about its shape.
(1) Early knowledge and understanding
The earliest to study this type of pagoda were Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin. Mr. Liang Sicheng's inference about the White Pagoda in Jixian County in 1932 has been described above, and in the following time, Mr. Liang obtained information about several ancient pagodas with similar characteristics. Therefore, in 1942~1944, in the "History of Chinese Architecture" edited by Li Zhuang in Sichuan, Chapter 6, Section 7 "Analysis of Song, Liao and Jin Architectural Characteristics", it was proposed that there are six types of Song, Liao and Jin pagodas, and this kind of tower is one of them: "The top tower of the slope is blocked, the lower part of the tower is not much different from other types, there are three more layers, the top of the tower is huge, such as the slope of the kiln, the north tower of Yunju Temple in Fangshan, Hebei, the white tower of Jixian County, the west tower of the Shuangta Nunnery of Yi County, and the tower of Tianning Temple in Xingtai, all belong to this type. The primitive of this type, or because the tower is not completed, the funds are insufficient, so the scribble to make a big brake to do things, so the formation of this type, is also very probable, but whether the top of the tower is added in later generations, is still extremely suspicious. ”
Mr. Liang Sicheng also mentioned in the sixth section of the sixth chapter of the "History of Chinese Architecture" edited by him, "The Real Objects of the Five Dynasties, Song, Liao, Jin": "The tower of Xingtai Tianning Temple is in Xingtai, Hebei, and the first layer of the tower below it is the same as other Liao towers. The north tower of Yunju Temple in Fangshan County, Hebei Province, the white tower of Guanyin Temple in Jixian County, and the west tower of Shuangta Nunnery in Yi County all belong to this type, and it is also a unique tower type of the Liao Dynasty. ”
However, Liang Sicheng and his wife were limited by the times, and did not determine whether the roof of the slope was the original system of the Liao Dynasty or the addition of later generations, and gave an ambiguous conclusion.
Later, Mr. Liu Dunzhen did not mention this type of tower in Chapter 6 of "Architecture in the Song, Liao, and Jin Periods" in his 1965 book "History of Ancient Chinese Architecture". Similarly, in the first chapter of the first chapter of the History of Chinese Architecture, "Religious Architecture", published in 1979, there are six types of stupas, which are also not mentioned.
(2) Scholarly knowledge and understanding over the past 30 years
After archaeological excavations in the 80s of the 20th century, the original shape of the white pagoda of Guanyin Temple in Jixian County has been confirmed. Its current structure and shape basically maintain the original appearance and style of the Liao Dynasty. However, this important message still does not receive enough attention. Later books, such as Guo Daihui's History of Ancient Chinese Architecture (Volume 3): Song, Liao, Jin, and Western Xia Architecture, published in 2003, also mentioned this type of pagoda.
Only in recent years published in some of the books dedicated to the ancient pagodas, can we see some simple descriptions of this type of pagoda, but the content of the introduction is not exact, most of the authors of the books still refer to the two large bowl-covered pagodas, the white pagoda of Guanyin Temple in Jixian County (Fig. 2, right) and the red pagoda of Yunju Temple in Fangshan (Fig. 2, left), and classify these two Liao pagodas into one category.
In making a specific introduction, some scholars believe that the two towers of Jixian and Fangshan are the special tower types of the Liao Dynasty; some scholars emphasize that the bowl phase wheel of the north tower of Yunju Temple in Fangshan has been changed by later generations, but they also mention that it is similar to the shape of the Liao Dynasty of the white tower in Jixian County. This kind of vague expression often makes the reader scratch his head, the two towers are similar only to the top of the bowl phase wheel, the bottom of the bowl is very different, if one of the bowls is later changed. So in the Liao Dynasty, which was first built, are they not similar, and shouldn't they be classified as one category?
Therefore, it is necessary to re-clarify the original shape of these two towers.
2. Archaeological conclusions of Fangshan and Jixian Erta covered bowls
In fact, the north tower of Fangshan Yunju Temple was indeed changed by later generations, and the north tower of Yunju Temple should have been a five-story pavilion-style tower built in the Liao Dynasty. According to the record in the "White Belt Mountain Chronicles": "In the second level under the tower, the wooden ladder is broken,...... Now the top of the tower is spiral (layer by layer phase wheel, the author's note) is not classified, then it is not built at the same time. The tower rebuilt in the Liao period is five levels, and the upper three levels of it do not know how to fall in some years, and the spiral at the top of the tower is built in the early Ming Dynasty. According to the archaeological staff who had climbed the tower along the scaffolding during the maintenance of the tower in 2012, the structure of the tower pavilion part is simpler than the twin towers of the Liao Dynasty in Zhuozhou, and it belongs to the simple pavilion-style tower built in the Liao Dynasty (the same type of tower has the three-story Fangshan Tiankai Tower and the Yixian Thousand Buddha Pagoda). The bricks used in the covered bowl are quite different from the pavilion part of the two floors below, and they are by no means bricks of the same era. The original state of the tower above the second floor is by no means like this, and the top floor must have been damaged or collapsed in a disaster in the later generations, and the part of the bowl wheel is the work of the dog's tail continuation mink. It is possible, as Mr. Liang Sicheng said, that due to "insufficient funds" or other reasons, "it was scribbled to make a big stop, and then this formula was formed".
The white pagoda of Guanyin Temple in Jixian County carried out archaeological excavations after the Tangshan earthquake in 1976, and found that there is a covered bowl in the body of the covered bowl, and the covered bowl is the product of the later generations, and the covered bowl is the original when the Liao Dynasty was built, and there is a residual root of the phase wheel of the Liao Dynasty on it, which directly proves that the phase wheel structure of the covered bowl is the original structure of the Liao Dynasty.
It can be concluded that the north tower of Fangshan Yunju Temple and the white tower of Guanyin Temple in Jixian County were completely different from the original shape when they were first built in the Liao Dynasty.
3. Analysis and discussion of the real shape of the covered bowl tower in the Liao Dynasty
After the archaeological excavation of the white tower in Jixian County, the archaeologists also gave its restoration map (Figure 3), but at that time there was still a mindset when drawing the restoration map, and the restoration of "double eaves one" was given with reference to the appearance of the current tower, and the specific restoration of this "seat" also referred to the seat of the covered bowl of the north tower of Fangshan Yunju Temple. The structure of the bowl phase wheel of the north tower of Fangshan Yunju Temple was changed by later generations, and the shape of the Liao Dynasty was changed after the Liao Dynasty as the basis for the restoration of the Liao Dynasty, which is not right, and was caused by the limitations of understanding at that time.
It can be seen that the cultural relics and archaeologists of Jixian County at that time did not deduce the true shape of the white pagoda of Guanyin Temple in Jixian County. Although they had proposed that the West Pagoda of Shuangta Nunnery in Yixian County, Hebei Province, and the Yinshan Pagoda in Changping had a lineage relationship with the White Pagoda in Jixian County, they were completely unaware that these towers should belong to the same type of pagoda.
(1) The shape characteristics of the combined tower of gold and yuan covered bowl and dense eaves
The above-mentioned Yixian Shuangta Nunnery West Pagoda (Fig. 4, 1) and Changping Yinshan Pagoda (Fig. 4, 3) are stupas defined by academics as "combined pagodas with bowls and dense eaves". There are still several gold and yuan covered bowl and dense eaves combined towers in the mainland (including those who have been destroyed but left photos, Figure 4: 2 is the Yuanzheng Master Pagoda of Baipu Temple in Beijing, and Figure 4: 4 is the tower of Tianning Temple in Xingtai), and the following points can be summarized through the shape of these four towers.
(1) The base and the first layer of the tower are similar to the traditional Liao-style dense eaves tower.
(2) The tower body up (including the tower body) no longer has any common imitation of large wooden characteristics of the Liaojin pagoda: the corner of the tower body does not apply the eaves column, and the brick carved small tower or the prayer building replaces. There is no bucket arch under the eaves of the first layer, and the eaves of the first layer of the Liao Dynasty dense eaves tower are the essence of brick imitation wood), and the dense eaves are eaves with a mixed curve, all of which are three layers. There are no rafters flying and tiles on the eaves.
(3) The third layer of eaves is placed on the hemispherical covered bowl, and the top of the covered bowl is the phase wheel.
It seems that the above-mentioned gold and Yuan towers only have three layers of dense eaves that are customized. Compared with Jixian White Tower, it almost completely has the above characteristics, and the only difference is the "three-layer dense eaves". It can be inferred from this that the original shape of the white tower in Jixian County should also be "three eaves", not "one double eaves", and the restoration of its original shape does not need to refer to the north tower of Fangshan Yunju Temple that was changed in the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, according to the restoration map of "double eaves and one eaves" given by the cultural relics and archaeologists of Jixian County (Fig. 5, 2), the author made slight modifications and drew the restoration map of the "three eaves" of the white pagoda in Jixian County (Fig. 5, 1).
However, the question arises, the above-mentioned characteristics of the shape are all the characteristics of the combined tower of the Jin and Yuan covered bowls and dense eaves, and whether it is completely applicable to the Jixian White Pagoda of the Liao Dynasty? Although the Jin and Yuan dynasties were not far from Liao, the restoration of the ancient pagodas of the Liao Dynasty with the shape of the Jin and Yuan still lacks the strength to be used as a conclusive argument. If a similar Liao pagoda can be found, the situation will be completely different.
(2) The age and shape of the tower of Chifeng Jing'an Temple
Fortunately, in 2013, another combined Liao Pagoda with a bowl and dense eaves appeared in people's field of vision.
(1) The age of the Chifeng Jing'an Temple Tower is determined.
The White Pagoda of Tazi Mountain in Chifeng, located on the Tazi Mountain in the Yuanbao Mountain area south of Chifeng, has been untested for a long time, and is usually considered to be a relic of Liaojin according to its shape and geographical location.
Until August 2000, the Khitan character "Yelu Changyun Epitaph" and the Chinese character "Yelu Changyun Wife Xiao's Epitaph" were unearthed on the mountainside where the white pagoda of Chifeng Tazi Mountain is located, and combined with the record of "Yelu Changyun's wife founded Jing'an Temple Tablet" under the Daming Pagoda in Liaozhong Jing, Ningcheng County in the early years, the age range and name of this tower were finally determined.
The White Pagoda of Tazishan is named after the temple where it is located, and should be called the Jing'an Temple Tower. "The creation of Jing'an Temple stele" records that Jing'an Temple was completed in the eighth year of Xianyong (1072), and the stele mentions the establishment of a shrine and a hall, but does not mention the construction of a tower. "Yelu Changyun's wife Xiao's epitaph" records that Xiao died of illness in the seventh year of Da'an (1091) at the age of 81, when the tower had been completed. Therefore, in the past, it was often inferred from the content of these two stone carvings that the age of the tower of Chifeng Jing'an Temple should be 1072~1091.
However, after the interpretation of the Khitan character "Yelu Changyun Epitaph", it was found that there was the word "Tashan Yu" in the 22nd column, and in the two columns immediately adjacent to it (the 20th and 21st columns) there were the words "Qingning Bayenyin Year September Yi Si Shuo 26 Gengwu Yu Mao Shi Yu", this precise time and the word "Tashan" should describe the specific time and place of burial. However, in the eighth year of Qingning (1062), Jing'an Temple was still in the early days of the temple, and the burial of the Buddha's tooth relics in the record of "creating the Jing'an Temple Tablet" was in the fifth year of Xianyong (1069), and there was a tower in 1062.
After the interpretation of the Khitan big character "Yelu Changyun Epitaph", it was found that in the penultimate column there were the words "June 5th of the 10th year of Dakang", and the usual Khitan epitaph ended with the year, the name and identity of the writer, and some self-humble words of the epitaph author. This 10th year of Dakang (1084) shows that the "Epitaph of Yelu Changyun" was engraved 22 years after Yelu Changyun's burial. At the time of carving, the tower had been completed, so the words "Tower Mountain" appeared in the epitaph. In this way, the age of this tower was advanced to 1072~1084.
In short, there is no doubt that the tower recorded in the "Epitaph of Yelu Changyun" and his wife's "Epitaph of the Xiao Family" is the Liao Tower.
So, whether the existing tower of Jing'an Temple is the tower referred to in the epitaph of the two sides? There is a brick carving Bodhisattva on the four corners of this tower, and there is a "convex" character sub-interface around the brick carving Bodhisattva statue, which is the vacancy reserved on the tower body when the tower is built, and it is the large-scale brick carving inlay method of the tower body typical in the traditional Liaodi. In addition, the Bodhisattva stepped on a lotus on both feet, held the offering by hand, the lines of the clothes were smooth, and the wind of "Cao Yi out of the water" carved by the characters of the Liao Dynasty was very rich, and the Sumeru seat was also the style of the Liao Dynasty. These all show that the existing tower is the tower recorded in the "Epitaph of Yelu Changyun's Wife Xiao", which is undoubtedly the building of the Liao Dynasty.
(2) Confirmation of the shape of the Chifeng Jing'an Temple Tower.
This tower was damaged in the past (Fig. 6), and it has always been believed that this tower is an ordinary Liao-style dense eaves tower, with three remaining floors, and it is an out-and-out half-cut tower. As for the fragmented circular brick part at the top of the tower, it is also not considered to be the original structure, and for many years it has been regarded as adding to the top of the tower in half during later repairs.
But look at this tower and Yixian Shuangta Nunnery West Tower and other gold, Yuan covered bowl dense eaves combined tower the same as no bucket arch, Langpu, eaves pillar and other bricks imitation wood, and is also a three-layer dense eaves, the eaves shape is carved with the lotus petal of the mixed curve, the eaves also have no rafters flying, covering tiles and so on. Looking at the damaged top of the tower that has been criticized for a long time, isn't it a hemispherical covered bowl? In addition to the phase wheel on the covered bowl has long since disappeared, all parts of the whole tower, including the eight spiritual pagodas at the corner, are very similar to the shape of the white pagoda in Jixian County. So why has no one realized for many years that this pagoda was topped with a covered bowl? It is mainly due to the fact that there are too few similar examples in existence, and the academic community has not pondered enough about the shape and type of Liao pagoda.
The confirmation of the shape of the tower of Chifeng Jing'an Temple illustrates the fact that such towers existed in the Liao Dynasty. One is an isolated case, which may be accidental, and the existence of two Liao pagodas of similar shape that are not very close to each other is no longer accidental.
Therefore, when mentioning the White Tower of Jixian County in the future, it must replace its former companion - the North Tower of Fangshan Yunju Temple, and replace it with the Tower of Chifeng Jing'an Temple. The north tower of Fangshan Yunju Temple does not belong to this tower system at all, and the two towers of Chifeng (Figure 7, left) and Jixian (Figure 7, right) are the ancestors of this type of tower.
(3) The concept of "Liao-style covered bowl tower" is "covered bowl three-eaves combined tower".
From the previous analysis, it can be seen that the Liao Dynasty created, the Jin and Yuan Dynasty followed this type of tower, are covered with a bowl and three layers of dense eaves combined, the three eaves should be fixed, there is no bucket arch under the eaves, but the cross-sectional shape of the tower body transitioned from the octagon of the Liao Dynasty to the hexagonal of the Jin and Yuan. Therefore, all the combined towers with dense eaves are original. If there are still people who insist that it will be transformed by later generations, should they deliberately get rid of the dougong during the transformation? Is it that no matter whether it is built or not, no matter how many eaves still exist, they must all be transformed into three eaves?
Therefore, for this kind of tower, it is not appropriate to define it as a combined tower with a bowl and dense eaves, because its tower body (including the tower body) has no imitation wood structure, and only three eaves, and the shape of the eaves is a mixed curve, which is completely different from the dense eaves of the Liao-style dense eaves tower. In particular, the tower body is all without eaves columns, Liao Dynasty brick towers such as Langpu common brick imitation big wood, the first layer of eaves under the brick imitation bucket arch, the eaves without rafters flying tile ridges, completely different from the common Liao style dense eaves tower, this "three eaves" is likely to belong to the attached part of the covered bowl. At the same time, in view of the fact that its shape is different from the Yuan and Qing Dynasty bowl-covered towers (lama towers), this kind of tower type created in Liao, Jin and Yuan should be redefined as "Liao-style bowl-covered towers", or "three-eaves combined towers with bowls".
The architectural background of the three Liao Dynasty covered bowl towers
1. The architectural background of the White Tower in Jixian County
Next, let's talk about the author's understanding of the architectural background of this type of tower, let's first look at the Jixian White Tower.
Jixian White Tower, also called Guanyin Temple White Tower, stands in Jixian Guanyin Temple, located in the south of the famous Jixian Dule Temple. Guanyin Temple was built during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, and the tower may not belong to today's Guanyin Temple in Liao. Mr. Liang Sicheng first noticed: "The location of the tower ...... It seems to be on the north-south middle line of Durakuji Temple...... then impartial, appropriate before the bodhisattva...... It can be described as a part of the plane configuration of Dule Temple. The location of the tower is apparently "depending on the temple".
And the Guanyin Pavilion of Dule Temple was rebuilt in the Liao Dynasty, and the "Shang Father Qin Wang" in the early years of the unification and unification is closely related, this Shang father Qin Wang, is Han Kuangsi, Han Kuangsi is the father of Han Derang, belongs to the famous Yutian Han family of the Liao Dynasty, Yutian was subordinate to Jizhou at that time, and the Yutian Han family has enough financial resources to rebuild their hometown of Dule Temple. Mr. Su Bai once wrote that the main purpose of the reconstruction of Dule Temple was that Han Kuangsi wanted to glorify the township, and at that time there was a custom of establishing a family temple in Liaojing, and when Dule Temple was rebuilt, it was the prosperous era of the Han family, so this Dule Temple rebuilt in the Liao Dynasty is likely to be the home temple of the Han family in Yutian.
At the same time, Mr. Su Bai also inferred from the inscription of the fourth year of Qingning (1058) on the relics found in the white pagoda in Jixian County in 1983 that the year before the fourth year of Qingning, there was an incident in which the Taoist sect thought that Han Derang had no children and ordered the son of the royal family King Wei to be King Wenzhong as the heir of Han Derang, so it is very likely that this pagoda was a pagoda built in the fourth year of Qingning for Han's family temple, Dule Temple.
However, after cleaning and excavating the inner bowl of the white pagoda in Jixian County, it was found that the tower had undergone a repair shortly after it was completed. Since there was a large earthquake near present-day Daxing District in Beijing in the third year of Qingning (1057), it is inferred that the fourth year of Qingning on Shihan should be the time of post-earthquake maintenance, and it is very likely that its construction age is the same as the time of reconstruction of Dule Temple. Therefore, there is no doubt that this tower belongs to a part of the Dule Temple.
In addition, in front of the relics stone letter found in the white tower of Jixian County, there are the words "Zhongjing stayed, and served in China and Han Zhibai buried 14 Dingguang Buddha relics". This Han Zhibai, who stayed in Zhongjing, has a similar name to Han Derang's grandfather Han Zhigu, and Mr. Su Bai wrote that he is most likely not from the Han clan in Yutian, Jizhou. Mr. Su also mentioned that the eighth volume of Yuan Haowen's "Zhongzhou Collection" recorded Han Zhibai's family history: "Zhibai, Shiliao is the Zhongshu Order, and Fu is the Zhongshu Menxia Pingzhangshi." Give the field Panshan, then for the Yuyang people. The author believes that the Han Zhibai family later became Jizhou people, which of course does not rule out that they clinged to the powerful Han Derang family and buried them in the relics when repairing the stupa of the Han family temple after the earthquake.
All in all, the White Pagoda of Jixian County belonged to the Dule Temple during the Liao Dynasty, and the White Pagoda belonged to the affiliated pagoda of the Liao Dynasty Family Temple.
2. The architectural background of the Chifeng Jing'an Temple Tower
Let's take a look at the Chifeng Jing'an Temple Tower and the Jing'an Temple where it is located. According to the "Creation of Jing'an Temple Monument" and "Yelu Changyun and His Wife's Epitaph", the Jing'an Temple Pagoda is obviously related to the Yelu Changyun family. Yelu Changyun's fourth ancestor is the second brother of Liao Taizu Yelu Abaoji, Yelu Rage, whose ancestors are all important ministers of Liao, Yelu Changyun's family has the place to cast Yizhou and build Jing'an Temple, which is located in the north of Yizhou City.
Dr. Li Ruoshui of Tsinghua University learned in his dissertation that from the selection of the site to the construction and the invitation of monks, all the affairs of Jing'an Temple were handled by the Yelu Changyun family, and it was built in the beautiful place of the state city, which was obviously not a public temple built for ordinary believers, but belonged to the Yelu Changyun family. It can be seen that the most basic function of Jing'an Temple is to pray for the living and deceased people of the Yelu Changyun family.
In addition, the "Creation of Jing'an Temple Tablet" also recorded: "Every time Yanggu wants to twilight, the wheel will fall, and the shadow of the relics will fall over Qiu Qi." The ruins of the Taishi Gong are in the shadow. It can be seen that the joint tomb of Yelu Changyun and his wife should be located not far from the east side of the stone niche (that is, the location of the tower) where the relics are located. After the excavation of archaeologists, about 100 meters east and southeast of the tower of Jing'an Temple, a total of two Liao tombs were unearthed, the east is the joint burial tomb of Yelu Changyun and his wife, and the other may be the tomb of Yelu Changyun's descendants. This shows that the Buddha's tooth relics are "covered in dust" for Yelu Changyun and his wife. At the same time, after the interpretation of the Khitan big character "Yelu Changyun Epitaph", it was found that there were the words "Tomb of the Grandfather King", and it is likely that the cemetery of his ancestors was also here.
Li Ruoshui also believes that the location of the Yelu Changyun family cemetery and the Jing'an Temple are closely related, and the ruins of the Jing'an Temple are located on the platform dozens of meters southeast of the Yelu Changyun tomb, and the temple, tomb, and tower are located on the same line from southeast to northwest. From the order of construction of Yelu Changyun tomb and Jing'an Temple, the temple site should be selected first, the tomb should be built, and the tower should be built last, and the tomb and Jing'an Temple should be planned and built simultaneously, and Jing'an Temple has the nature of Yelu Changyun's family tomb. In other words, Jing'an Temple is very likely to be a "family temple" built in the mausoleum of the Yelu Changyun family.
Yizhou is not loaded in the "Liao History and Geographical Chronicles", which shows that the jurisdiction and economic strength of Yizhou are not large, and it belongs to a relatively small state town. Therefore, Jing'an Temple has the nature of "home temple", so the tower of Jing'an Temple also belongs to the subsidiary pagoda of the family temple of the Liao Dynasty.
3 Summary
From this point of view, there are two existing cases of covered bowl and three-eaves combined Liao tower, that is, the covered bowl type tower of the Liao Dynasty, both have the nature of the attached pagoda of the family temple.
Although there is a custom of building family temples in Liaojing, not all family temples have attached stupas. The Meritorious Tomb Temple is very common in the Song realm south of the Liao Kingdom, but there are few examples seen in the Liao realm, and the Jing'an Temple is a precious example of the tomb temple established by the nobles of the Liao Dynasty. This may also be the reason why the number of affiliated stupas of this kind of family temple in the Liao Dynasty is small.
The Jin and Yuan dynasties built this type of tower relatively survived, but the cross-sectional shape of the tower body evolved from the octagon of the Liao Dynasty to the hexagonal shape of the Jin and Yuan Dynasty. Among them, the Baipu Temple tower in the western suburbs of Beijing is the tomb tower of the Yuanzheng monk, the high monk of the late Liao Dynasty, and the tower of the Tianning Temple in Xingtai is the tomb tower of the high monk Xuzhao Zen Master of the Yuan Dynasty.
As for the origin of its shape, Zheng Qi believes in the article "The Architectural Art of Covered Bowl Towers": "In the process of conquering the Turks and Uighurs, the Liao State went west to Ganzhou (Zhangye) and Suzhou (Jiuquan) in the area, and it is very likely that the craftsmen who went south with the Khitan brought the remnants of the bowl tower shape in the northwest to Beijing and Hebei, and combined the original local pavilion style and the typical form of the Liaojin ancient pagoda to create these nondescript tower forms. The author thinks that it is not appropriate to call it nondescript, this type of stupa eaves for the mixed curve, triple eaves for customization, this special shape of the triple eaves is very likely to symbolize the past, present, future three lives. Moreover, its covered bowl is hemispherical type, which is closer to the prototype of the ancient Indian cave and slope blocking than the Yuan and Qing covered bowl towers of later generations, and the specific cause of its shape still needs to be further studied by experts and scholars.
Fourth, existing problems
Even though the archaeological report of the White Pagoda in Jixian County has been published for more than 20 years, and the pilgrimage and tourism to the Dule Temple and the White Pagoda in Jixian County are also endless, but people still do not regard the three-eaves combined tower with covered bowl as an independent tower type created by the Liao Dynasty, so that there are still such towers for the Yuan Dynasty to rebuild the text in the newspapers, such as the article "The Discovery of the Eagle Peak Temple Tower" published in the "Yanzhao Metropolis Daily" on October 25, 2015.
The article argues that after the fall of the Jin Dynasty, the old aesthetics began to be broken. Due to the advocacy of the Mongols, Lamaism, which was popular in Tibet, began to spread in the hinterland, and the Lama's pagoda, as a new style in the pagoda, also began to be introduced to the hinterland.
The Eagle Peak Pagoda in Yangyuan County, Hebei Province was just half built at that time, and it was stopped due to the war at the time of the replacement of the Jin Yuan. By the time work started again, the Mongols, who advocated Lamaism, had become rulers. The builders of the stupa found that the original plan for the stupa was no longer in line with the new situation and contrary to the needs of reality. The aesthetic tastes and direction of the imperial court changed, and the construction of stupas had to keep up with the times. As a result, on the newly built Eagle Peak Temple Pagoda (Figure 8), the dense eaves pagoda and the lama pagoda are perfectly combined. The article also believes that the renovation of the Eagle Peak Pagoda is a bold innovation that conforms to the trend and spirit of the times, so that the Lama Pagoda is integrated into the hearts of believers in the mainland.
Why are there still such completely imaginary articles published today? This is all because the concept of the bowl-covered tower appeared in the Yuan Dynasty is too poisonous. Although it has been nearly 30 years since the truth of the White Tower in Jixian County was revealed to the world, the publicity of its truth is quite lacking. On the other hand, the reason is that for a long time, the tower of Chifeng Jing'an Temple has been "raised in the deep boudoir and no one knows". Therefore, it is necessary to pay enough attention to the special type of Liao-style covered bowl tower, that is, the combined tower of the covered bowl and three eaves, and some of the written materials that introduce the ancient tower are also time to be rewritten.
This article is excerpted from Zhang Lianxing, edited by Sun Li and Yan Guangyu, and edited by Shenyang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, "Shenyang Archaeological Anthology" Episode 6 of "The Covered Bowl Tower of the Liao Dynasty". The content has been slightly abridged and adjusted.