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The Sakyamuni Pagoda, mostly built with timber, is the few existing wooden pagoda and also the tallest in the world.

The Sakyamuni Pagoda is a Buddhist Palace Monastery in Yingxian County, Shanxi Province, or called the Wooden Pagoda in Yingxian County, built in the second year (1056) of the reign of Liao Dynasty Emperor Daozong.

The pagoda was built on a stone platform four meters high. Around the upper edge and at the corners of the platform there are sculptures of crawling lions whose simple and unsophisticated style belongs to the Liao Dynasty. The exterior of the pagoda is divided into five levels, but there are actually nine levels in the interior, including four built-in storeys. The ground floor has a ring of side corridors and eaves, so it has a total six-layer eaves, the lower two formed into multiple eaves. Under each of the succeeding four layers there is a further dark layer, so the structure actually has nine layers. The exterior of the dark layer is called “level seating” which is a ring of corridors with balustrades around the pagoda itself. Each floor consists of inner and outer rings of pillars. The pillars on each floor slant slightly inward, the plane size diminishing floor by floor, although the figure remains stable. The windowless outer walls on the ground floor, the added enclosing corridors and eaves all strengthen the sense of stability.

The steeple of the pagoda is ten meters high; the whole pagoda, 67.31 meters high. The diameter of the octagonal first storey is 30.27 meters, the longest among ancient pagodas. When people enter the southern door of the pagoda, they see a statue of Sakyamuni about ten meters high. The caisson ceiling is refined and beautifully structured. On the inner walls are six pictures of Tathagata in different poses. On the walls of the doorway are mural paintings of warrior attendants, heavenly kings, and Buddhist disciples. A painting of three female devotees on the wall above the door is especially exquisite. All the statues and murals have Liao Dynasty characteristics.

On its base level, the pattern is particularly important. Its horizontal level is in harmony with the eaves in various layers, in contrast to the pagoda itself, and its material, color and treatment techniques are in contrast to the pagoda eaves and in coordination with the pagoda itself, providing a necessary transition for the pagoda eaves and the pagoda itself. Regional partition is distinct, and the texture is clear. The base greatly enriches the contour line of the pagoda and at the same time strengthens the horizontal sense.

The whole pagoda consists of six-layer eaves, four-layer lever seats and two-layer platforms, with a total of 12 level lines in coordination and affinity with the vast land. Hence, the pagoda sits steadily on the vast land, natural but implicit, but by no means too lofty.

For nearly a thousand years the Wooden Pagoda has withstood numerous strong earthquakes. According to historical records, during a severe earthquake lasting seven days during the reign of Emperor Shun of the Yuan Dynasty the pagoda stood firm. Though the Yingxian County area was affected by the big earthquakes in Xingtai and Tangshan of Hebei Province and in Helinger of Inner Mongolia in recent years, the Wooden Pagoda did not suffer any damage. Tire pagoda’s antiseismic strength, proved by these earthquakes, demonstrated the achievement of wooden structures in ancient China.

The Sakyamuni Pagoda, honest and simple towering over the vast land of north China, is an artistic expression of the great spirit of the Chinese nation, and has eternal esthetic value.

（Source: chinaculture.org）