Wanbu Huayanjing Pagoda

About

The Wanbu Huayanjing Pagoda, more affectionately known by its Chinese name Baita or White Pagoda, rises within the Saihan District of Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia. Its formal name, the Pagoda of the Ten Thousand Volumes of the Avatamsaka Sutra, recalls the great corpus of Mahayana Buddhist scripture that the tower was built to enshrine.

The pagoda was raised during the Liao dynasty within the walled city of Fengzhou, although the exact year of completion is unknown. Most sources place its construction during the reign of Emperor Daozong of Liao, between 1055 and 1110, when Liao patronage fostered the building of temples and pagodas across northern China.

The tower is octagonal in plan and rises to seven storeys, standing some 55 metres high with a diameter of 18 metres. It is built primarily of brick and white lime paste, with wooden brackets supporting the structure internally and a winding staircase connecting all seven floors. At the time of its completion the entire exterior was coated with chalk-based clay, giving the tower the dazzling white surface from which its popular name derives.

The pagoda was renovated in 1162 under the Jin dynasty and again through the Yuan and Qing periods. Although Fengzhou was destroyed in the late Yuan and the tower's upper portion was lost, it has been carefully restored to its original form. Listed in 1982 as a Major Historical and Cultural Site, the Baita gives its name to Hohhot's international airport.

History

Built during the eleventh or early twelfth century within the Liao city of Fengzhou, the Baita was conceived as a great reliquary for the Avatamsaka Sutra and as a focus of Buddhist worship in the Mongolian borderlands. Renovated under the Jin in 1162, it survived the destruction of Fengzhou in the late Yuan with grave damage to its upper levels and was painstakingly restored across the Yuan and Qing dynasties to its present shape. Modern protection was secured in 1982, when the pagoda was inscribed in the second batch of national Major Historical and Cultural Sites.

Significance

The Wanbu Huayanjing Pagoda is one of the great surviving Buddhist towers of the Liao dynasty and a precious witness to medieval Mongolian Buddhism. Its enshrinement of the Avatamsaka Sutra and its long history of restoration give the pagoda a singular place in the religious and cultural heritage of Inner Mongolia.