Pagoda Forest

Pagoda Forest with a land area of nearly 20, 000 square meters is located on the slop over 280 meters southwest to Shaolin Temple Permanent Residence Compound and near the Shaoxi River in the south. In the Forest, there are numerous pagodas in different shapes and height just like high trees to form a forest and thus it is called “Pagoda Forest”. as per legend, in the Qing Dynasty, when travelling the Zhong Yue (Songshan Mountains), Emperor Qianlong sent 500 of his imperial troops to count the pagodas, thousand and half of a day was spent, but they failed to give an exact figure. Emperor Qianlong said in a sigh with emotion: “It is really a Pagoda Forest”.

Pagoda was a product of Buddhism, being originated from Ancient India. In Sanskrit, “pagoda” means the grave. It has been translated into more than twenty Chinese names in different ways such as transliteration, free translation and translation as per shapes, including “Situpa (Stupa), Toupa, Futu, Fang Fen (Square Grave), Round Grave, Gaoxian, Spiritual Temple”. Later on, it was simplified as “Ta Po” and further as “Ta” (pagoda). As per textual research, when Buddhism came into China in Han Dynasty, there was no “Ta”, while the historical books as “History of Post-Han” and “Book of Three-states”, there were only Futu and Foutu. “Ta” was first observed in “Garden of Words” written by Ge Hong in Han Dynasty. The word has a tricky structure, with a combination of sound and meaning to describe the grave for the monk bones. Later on, people would often use “Futu”. China was much late in building the pagodas, while India had experienced a long period in building pagodas. In China, some pagodas have the inscriptions calling the pagodas as “Buddha” instead of “pagoda”.

As per legend, Sakyamuni’ s disciple asked him, what kind of area would you build after you pass away? Sakyamuni did not reply directly but picked casually the seven common articles such as books, alms bowl and inverted bell. When Sakya passed away, to enshrine and worship his relics, Buddha’ s disciples built a seven-layer pointed architecture according to the model combined with the seven articles as per size and called the architecture as “Stupa”. Due to the limitation of Buddha for building pagodas, no pagodas was only built for those bhadanta eminent monks with countless merits and virtues. Consequently, there has been a saying “Saving one life is superior to building a seven-layer Buddha”.

Our ancestors had not followed and copied the original shape of foreign “stupa”, but added a pointed temple to the current pavilions in combination of Chinese traditional architectures and creatively developed architectural form of Buddhism to form the Chinese-style pavilion wooden pagodas. In the early days, Chinese pagodas were made of wood, but late on, from the West Jin, they were made of bricks. Afterwords, all kinds of pagodas appeared, like stone pagoda, glazed pagoda, iron pagoda, gold pagoda, silver pagoda, etc.

The ancient pagodas had normally four parts: underground palace, pagoda base, pagoda body and pagoda temple, the last three of which are absolutely necessary. The palace is the place for keeping the Buddhist bones, Buddhist scriptures or the Buddhist relics. It is normally built with bricks several meters deep. On one side, one door is built with one passage for entrance and exit. The pagoda covers the underground palace, being divided into the base stage and base stand. The pagoda body is the main part of a pagoda, being solid or hollow, in the forms of pavilions, arbours, roofs, high stand and stupa. The pagoda temple is the top of a pagoda as well as the loftiest part of a pagoda, consisted of temple stand (base of the temple), temple body (with the multi-layer rings on the temple post being called as Xianglun (wheel), gold plate or dew-bearing plate), temple top (top of the temple, above the cover, including the moon and pearl). The base stand became larger gradually from Tang Dynasty, showing obviously the comparative low stage but high and splendid base stand. The base stand of the lama pagoda is one third of the pagoda height. The base stand for the guardian warriors pagoda has become the major part of the pagoda body, while the tower above becoming smaller. This is closely related to the constant focus of the Chinese architectural tradition on the stage and base. It not only keeps the above portion stable but also produces an artistic effect of solemness. The pagoda body is the main part of a pagoda and the pagoda temple is artistically treated as the golden top of the pagoda. Therefore, it is normally decorated upon building. It is normally using the stand or uprising lots stand to support the temple body, while the temple post is enveloped with “Xianglun” of different numbers and equipped with covers, moons and pearls. Many of the pagoda temples are small lama pagodas, obviously evolution from the early pagodas.

Shaolin Temple has now retained 246 ancient tomb towers or pagodas. Pagoda Forest has 228 from the dynasties of Tang, Wudai, Song, Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing, while the rest 18 pagodas include 2 Song pagodas in Permanent Residence Compound, 3 brick pagodas of Tang, Yuan and Ming nearby the Second-Master Nunnery, 1 brick pagoda of Jin Dynasty in Third-master Nunnery and 10 brick and stone pagodas around the Pagoda Forest. These pagodas have formed the magnificent architectural group of brick and stone pagodas in the Shaolin Temple. These pagodas were built in different dynasties and with different styles, showing the different engineering features. Therefore, the Pagoda Forest provides samples of pagodas for different times.

In view of the value reflected in the current pagoda temple, board and inscription, Shaolin Temple’ s pagoda Forest is treasured historical database for studying the arts of carving and calligraphy as well as for understanding about the history of Buddhism and especially the social, economic and Buddhist events of the Shaolin Temple. In view of the pagoda temple’ s status, the complete pagoda temples are 88 (79 inside the forest and 9 outside), damaged pagoda temples 90 (84 inside and 6 outside) and pagodas without temples or with temples lost 68 (67 inside and 1 outside). The current 178 pagoda temples (inclusive of the damaged temples) are more than two thirds of the total pagodas inside and outside the pagoda forest (all of which were built with stones, except for two bricks). The brick-built pagoda temples have a beautiful creation and excellent carving. In terms of the pagoda boards and inscriptions, the pagodas with boards and inscription are 63 (59 inside the forest and 4 outside), pagodas with boards but without inscriptions) 167 (161 inside and 6 outside), those without boards but with inscriptions 7 (4 inside and 3 outside), those without boards and inscriptions 2 (1 inside and 1 outside) and those without boards but with inscriptions lost 2 (1 inside and 1 outside). Out of the 246 stone-brick pagodas inside and outside the forest, the reserved pagodas with inscriptions and boards (inclusive those with unclear words) reached 239, with a total of 302 pagoda boards and inscriptions. The elegant brick-stone carvings, especially the excellently carved temples and patterns in the Shaolin Pagoda Forest are actually the best treasured brick-stone artistic works and the rare physical articles for studying the ancient carving arts and the palace for appreciating the brick-stone carving art. These 300 boards and inscriptions are carved in different styles of Chinese characters, including regular script, cursive handwriting, official script, cursive script and seal character. They are of high reference value for studying and appreciating the Chinese calligraphy. Additionally, the boards and inscriptions have also carried the historical records of Buddhist history, especially the social, economic and Buddhist history of Shaolin Temple and are the treasured materials for studying the history of Shaolin Temple and even Buddhism.

All in all, among the pagoda forests in China, Shaolin Temple’ s Pagoda Forest is the biggest in size and has the most pagodas. It has been the pagoda forest with the longest overlapping period of time, most of the earliest pagodas and highest cultural values.

The Shaolin Temple’ s Pagoda Forest is not only of the scientific, historical and artistic values but also has dotted the beautiful landscape of Songshan Mountains with its elegant features. The late Chinese famous architect and Director of the Chinese Creation Society, Liang Sicheng once said: “as a type of architectural relics, in terms of reflecting and stressing on Chinese scenery features, no other architectures than pagodas can have such outstanding appearances.” Therefore, with its magnificent charm, the Pagoda Forest attracts successfully domestic and foreign visitors.

Recently, as per permanence principle for the historical cultural relics, the central government and relevant departments of Henan Province have rehabilitated the seriously damage pagoda bases, regulated the environment, dredge the ditches, planted cedars and built the walls to show the original simple, solemn and respectful styles of the ancient Pagoda Forest.