Performing Center in a Vertical Rise: Multilevel Pagodas in China’s Middle Period

Notes

1. Though it is an important topic, the full story of the transmission of the Indian stūpa to the Chinese pagoda has not been completely explored. A useful article is Lothar Ledderose, “Chinese Prototypes of the Pagoda,” The Stūpa: Its Religious, Historical and Architectural Significance, ed. Anna Libera Dallapiccola (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1980), 238–48. See also Nancy Steinhardt, “Early Chinese Buddhist Architecture and Its Indian Origins,” The Flowering of a Foreign Faith: New Studies in Chinese Buddhist Art, ed. Janet Baker (New Delhi: Marg, 1998), 38–53; Li Yuming, “Zhongguo zaoqi fota suyuan” [中國早期佛塔溯源] (Tracing origins of early Chinese pagodas), Gugong xueshu jikan 6, no. 3 (1989), 75–104.

2. For lack of a better term, I use “China’s cultural territory” throughout this essay to refer to a broader territory in which China was the major cultural influence. The recognition of this expanded cultural territory was particularly important during the Middle Period, when China’s actual political territory was relatively limited. Building towering pagodas was not limited to Song China (960–1279) but was pervasive in the greater span that included the Liao (947–1125), Jin (1115–1234), Xi Xia (1038–1227), and Dali (937–1254), where Buddhism was practiced.

3. For a discussion on the construction of architecture vertically in brick, see Zhongguo kexueyuan ziran kexueshi yanjiusuo, Zhongguo gudai jianzhu jishushi [中國古代建築技術史] (History of Chinese Architectural Technology) (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 2000), 188–213.

4. As many of the tall buildings discussed in this essay only appear to have more than one story, yet have no actual floor space inside, I use “multilevel,” rather than “multistory,” to describe the multiple levels that can be distinguished from outside. I reserve “multistory” only for buildings that have more than one interior story. For the investigational report on the pagoda at the Songyue Monastery, see Henansheng gudai jianzhu baohu yanjiusuo, “Dengfeng Songyuesi ta kance jianbao” [登封嵩岳寺塔勘测简报] (A brief investigational report on the pagoda at Songyue Monastery, Dengfeng), Zhongyuan wenwu 4 (1987), 7–20.

5. On even-numbered levels, beginning on the fourth level, the door facing south can open to the exterior, but the opening is rather small, approximately 50 × 50 cm; it was not likely built for looking out. With a limited light source and no other features, there seems to be no reason to build stairs inside the pagoda. Based on traces still visible on the interior wall, some scholars have suggested that wooden stairs must have been installed; if so, it is unclear if the interior stairs were put in place when the pagoda was first built in the sixth century. As explained later in the introductory section, an aboveground crypt was added inside the chattra during the late Tang or early Song period, which likely is when the interior stairs were constructed. The investigational report published in 1987, however, argues against this speculation and concludes that no stairs were built in the entire history of the pagoda; see “Dengfeng Songyuesi ta kance jianbao,” Zhongyuan wenwu, 17–18.

6. See, for example, Nancy Steinhardt, Chinese Architecture in an Age of Turmoil, 200–600 (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2014), 204; Sun Ji, “Guanyu Zhongguo zaoqi gaoceng fota zaoxing de yuanyuan wenti” [关于中国早期高层佛塔造型的渊源问题] (The formal origins of China’s early multilevel pagodas), in his Zhongguo shenghuo: Zhongguo gu wenwu yu dongxi wenhua jiaoliu zhong de ruogan wenti (Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu chubanshe, 1996), 289–91.

7. This visual compression is discussed in Zheng Yan, “Ta yu cheng: guankui Zhongguo zhonggu ducheng de liti xingxiang” [塔与城：管窥中国中古都城的立体形象] (Pagodas and Cities: looking for the three-dimensional form in China’s medieval cities), Cong kaoguxue dao meishushi (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin chubanshe, 2012), 164–68.

8. On the Songyue si bei [嵩岳寺碑] (Stele of the Songyue Monastery), written by Li Yong (674–746), the section about the pagoda reads as follows: “The fifteen-story pagoda ... towers up from the ground in four directions and soars sky high with the Buddha’s eight manifestations in a full circle. It has a twelve-sided interior built with hundreds of windows, manifesting the relics through the tenures of the six abbots.” Quan Tang wen [全唐文] (Complete texts of the Tang), juan 263.

9. See Henansheng gudai jianzhu baohu yanjiusuo, “Dengfeng Songyuesi ta tiangong qingli jianbao” [登封嵩岳寺塔天宫清理简报] (A brief excavation report on the aboveground pagoda crypt at Songyue Monastery in Dengfeng), Wenwu 1 (1992), 26–30.

10. Here performance is not related to the performing arts, in which “performers” act before an “audience”; rather it refers to buildings as more than physical entities, perceived in both spatial and temporal dimensions as an architectural act or event at which their potential can be located and their meaning analyzed. Architectural performativity thus points to the “agentic power” of architecture that, with its structural, visual, and spatial properties, prompts the user to act—by turning him or her into an actor through orchestration of various architectural components, both material and immaterial (space, scale, etc.). This notion of performativity was established by J. L. Austin in his landmark work How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), in which he defines spoken language as more than descriptive or linguistic; rather, it should be understood as “speech acts” that actually do something. A recent edited volume that explores how performativity can be used in art historical analysis is Peter Gillgren and Mårten Snickare, eds., Performativity and Performance in Baroque Rome (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012).

11. See Zhang Yuhuan, Zhongguo fota shi [中国佛塔史] (History of Chinese Pagodas) (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 2006). In Zhang’s estimation, there are still 25,000 premodern pagodas standing in greater China, and the construction of pagodas reached its climax during the eleventh century during the Northern Song period (960–1127); see p. 102.

12. Here I use the term “agency” in a Gellian sense, that is, elements of art in a particular network of social relations that actually make the viewer do things. In my case, it is the character of the multilevel pagoda, or the building components that make a multilevel pagoda, that gave the pagoda a certain “agency,” prompting the visitor or ritual practitioner to act accordingly in the network of the religious practice under consideration. See Alfred Gell, Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1998).

13. As I will make clear later in the text, “technology,” although referred to as methods of building ideas and material productions in response to environmental restrains or challenges, is not disassociated from the significance of the building it creates. Rather, the technology of construction should be considered as an “architectonic expression,” to borrow Kenneth Frampton’s phrase, that ensures architecture derives its symbolism, meanings, and style from the very act of its making. See Kenneth Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995). For more on the issue of tectonic aesthetics, see Mitchell Schwarzer, “Ontology and representation in Karl Bötticher’s theory of tectonic,” JSAH 52, 267–80; Gevork Hartoonian, Ontology of Construction: On Nihilism of Technology in Theories of Modern Architecture (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

14. Admittedly, this essay does not cover every single pagoda built in this period, as many may have been built for more purposes than the religious. I also do not discuss many other pagodas in southern China, the Dali Kingdom in Yunnan, and west in the Xi Xia State. Yet it is telling that, though built in different regions, pagodas from this period were characterized by verticality—in terms of both height and level—which begs for more explanation. For a general survey of the pagodas in China, see Zhang Yuhuan, Zhongguo fota shi; for pagodas in the Yunnan region, see Zhang Jun, Yunnan guta jianzhu [云南古塔建筑] (Kunming: Yunnan meishu chubanshe, 2008); for pagodas in the Xi Xia region, see Lei Runze et al., Xixia fota [西夏佛塔] (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1995). Also not included in the current discussion, but an important reference, are examples of multilevel pagodas in Japan; see Takushū Sugimoto, Buttō no kenkyū: Ajia Bukkyō bunka no keifu o tadoru [仏塔の研究：アジア仏教文化の系譜をたどる] (Tokyo: Daiichi Shobō, 2002).

15. See Wang Guixiang, “Luelun Zhongguo gudai gaoceng mugou jianzhu de fazhan” [略论中国古代高层建筑的发展] (On the development of the multilevel architecture in premodern China), in Zhongguo gudai mugou jianzhu bili yu chidu yanjiu, ed. Wang Guixiang et al. (Beijing: Zhongguo jianzhu gongye chubanshe, 2011), 10–23.

16. See the section that discusses taixie in Fu Xinian, “Zhongguo tongqi shang de jianzhu tuxiang yanjiu” [中国铜器上的建筑图像研究] (Research on the imagery of architecture on China’s bronze vessels), Fu Xinian jianzhushi lunwen ji (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2003), 99–102; Steinhardt, Chinese Architecture, 51.

17. The architectural imagery engraved on bronze vessels is the topic of Fu, “Zhanguo tongqi shang de jianzhu tuxiang.”

18. Zhou Xueying, “Handai gaotai jianzhu jishu yanjiu” [汉代高台建筑技术研究] (Research on building technology for tall terraces during the Han dynasty), Kaogu yu wenwu 4 (2006), 66–72.

19. See Wu Hung, Monumentality in Early Chinese Art and Architecture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 102. For instance, Duke Ling of the Jin State (Jin linggong 晉靈公, reigned 620–7 BCE) was said to have built a nine-storied terrace; see Sima Qian, Shi ji 史記, juan 79, 2403.

20. Wu, Monumentality, 168.

21. The issues were primarily of two kinds: the allocation of columns, e.g., the network of interior columns, and the bracketing system applied to support the weight from above. See Zhou Xueying, “Cong chutu wenwu tantao handai louge jianzhu jishu” [从出土文物探讨汉代楼阁建筑技术] (Investigation of the building technology of towers and pavilions based on excavated artifacts), Kaogu yu wenwu 3 (2008), 65–71.

22. See Shandongsheng bowuguan and Shandongsheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo, Shandong Han huaxiangshi xuanji [山东汉画像石选集] (Selection of pictorial stone engravings of the Han from Shandong) (Jinan: Qilu shushe, 1982), pl. 187.

23. On the topic of mingqi, see Qinghua Guo, The Mingqi Pottery Buildings of Han Dynasty China, 206 BC–AD 220 (Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2010).

24. Detailed measurements of the mingqi can be found in the excavation reported in Zhang Songlin, “Yingyang Weihecun Handai qiceng taolou de faxian he yanjiu” [荥阳魏河村汉代七层陶楼的发现和研究] (The uncovering and research on the seven-story pottery tower of the Han period from Weihecun, Yingyang), Zhongyuan wenwu 4 (1987), 45–47.

25. For a related discussion based on the textual and pictorial sources, see Miu Zhe, “Chongfang louge” [重訪樓閣] (Revisiting Towers and Pavilions), Meishushi yanjiu jikan 33 (2012), 2–111.

26. According to Erya 爾雅, the earliest lexicographical work, dated to the third century BCE, a lou refers to a tall building that is “narrow [in its interior] and slender.”

27. Literary examples about ascending tall structures can be gleaned from some early lyric poetry, such as Wang Can’s 王粲 (177–217) Ode of Ascending the Tower (“Denglou fu” 登楼赋) and Xie Lingyun’s 谢灵运 (385–433) Climbing the Towers Over the Pond (“Dengchi shanglou” 登池上楼). See Pauline Yu, The Reading of Imagery in the Chinese Poetic Tradition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987).

28. It is recorded in Yang Xuanzhi 杨衒之 (died 555), Luoyang qielan ji 洛陽伽藍記 (A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Luoyang), volume (juan) 1, compiled in 547, annotated and translated in Yi-t’ung Wang, A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-yang (Princeton, NJ: University of Princeton Press, 1984), 20. My translation is adapted from Wang’s.

29. See Chen Mingda, Zhongguo gudai mujiegou jianzhu jishu: Zhanguo—Beisong [中国古代木结构建筑技术：战国－北宋] (Chinese pre-modern building technology for timber-frame architecture: from the Zhanguo period to Northern Song) (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1990), 50–51.

30. For the building trade as it flourished from the late Tang into the Northern Song dynasty, see Jiren Feng, Chinese Architecture and Metaphor: Song Culture in the Yingzao Fashi Building Manual (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2012).

31. This is also briefly discussed by Nancy Steinhardt: “In modern Chinese parlance, the term ‘lou,’ a reference to a high building that need not be associated with Buddhism, merged with ‘ge’ into ‘louge,’ a generic name for a multistory building that is not a pagoda”; see Steinhardt, Liao Architecture (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997), 42. See also Lü Jiang, “Tang Song louge jianzhu yanjiu” [唐宋楼阁建筑研究] (Research on louge architecture of the Tang–Song period), Jianzhushi lunwen ji 10 (1988), 22–56.

32. For a discussion on the prominent role of the high-rise tower in late Tang and Song poetry, see Han Xiwu, “Tang Song ci zhong de lou yixiang jiqi yinggou yishu” [唐宋词中的楼意象及其营构艺术] (The art configured through the imagery of towers in Tang-Song poetry), Henan shifan daxue xuebao 25, no. 6 (1998), 74–78.

33. It is in this regard that particularly high towers were often described in poetry as “dangerous towers” or weilou 危樓.

34. For Yu Hao, see Feng, Chinese Architecture and Metaphor, 60–63.

35. The account is recorded in Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072), Guitian lu 歸田錄 (Notes on retiring to farming), juan 1.

36. This is recorded in Chen Shou, Sanguo zhi三國志 (Record of the Three Kingdoms), juan 49; Fan Hua, Houhan shu後漢書 (History of the Later Han), juan 73.

37. For example, the well-known Four Entry Pagoda, or Simenta 四門塔, from Shentong Monastery in Licheng was built in 544; see Steinhardt, Chinese Architecture in an Age of Turmoil, 209–13.

38. See Heinrich G. Franz, “Stūpa and Stūpa-Temple in the Gandhāra Regions and in Central Asia,” in The Stūpa, 39–58; Steinhardt, Chinese Architecture in an Age of Turmoil, 97–105. This combination may be taken as an earlier predecessor of pagodas built with a chattra that became popular during the period of the current discussion.

39. For the mingqi, see Xiangfanshi wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo, “Hubei Xiangfan Fancheng Caiyue Sanguo mu fajue jianbao” [湖北襄樊樊城菜越三国墓发掘简报] (A brief excavation report on the tomb of the Three Kingdoms period from Fancheng, Xiangfan in Hubei), Wenwu 9 (2010), 4–20.

40. See Xie Zhicheng, “Sichuan Handai huaxiangzhuan shang de fota xingxiang” [四川汉代画像砖上的佛塔形象] (The imagery of pagodas as seen on pictorial bricks of the Han period in Sichuan), Sichuan wenwu 4 (1987), 62–64. See also Steinhardt, Chinese Architecture in the Age of Turmoil, 78–79.

41. For a useful discussion on the symbolic meanings of yaṣṭi in its Indian origin, see John Irwin, “The Axial Symbolism of the Early Stūpa: An Exegesis,” in The Stūpa, 12–38.

42. See Irwin, “The Axial Symbolism”; Michael W. Meister, “Access and Axes of Indian Temple,” Thresholds 32 (2006), 33–35.

43. See Fu Xinian, Zhongguo gudai jianzhushi: Liangjin, Nanbeichao, Sui-Tang, Wudai jianzhu [中国古代建筑史：两晋、南北朝、隋唐、五代建筑] (History of Chinese Premodern Architecture: Architecture of the Two Jins, Northern and Southern Dynasties, Sui and Tang, and Five Dynasties) (Beijing: Zhongguo jianzhu gongye chubanshe, 2009), 535.

44. For a detailed discussion on relic distribution during the Renshou reign (601–4) of Emperor Wen, see Jinhua Chen, Monks and Monarchs, Kinship and Kingship: Tanqian in Sui Buddhism and Politics (Kyoto: Scuola Italiana di Studi sull’Asia Orientale, 2002), chapter 2; Sonya Lee, Surviving Nirvana: Death of the Buddha in Chinese Visual Culture (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010), 202–23.

45. Records of the building accounts can be found in Guanghong mingji 廣弘明集 (Expanded anthology of extended brilliance), juan 17, collected in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大蔵経 (The Buddhist canons, Tripiṭaka, in Chinese; hereafter T.), 52: 2013.213a–221a.

46. The relationship of the architecture built in Hōryūji—including its main image hall (kondō 金堂), middle gate (chūmon 中門), and the five-story pagoda—to the Buddhist architecture in China around the same period is discussed in two articles by Nancy S. Steinhardt: “The Monastery Hōryūji: Architectural Forms of Early Buddhism in Japan,” in Transmitting the Forms of Divinity: Early Buddhist Art from Korea and Japan, ed. Washizuka Hiromitsu et al. (New York: Japan Society, 2003), 154–67; “Seeing Hōryūji Through China,” in Hōryūji Reconsidered, ed. Dorothy C. Wong and Eric M. Field (Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), 49–98. The five-story pagoda and the relics enshrined underneath are also the topic of Akiko Walley’s paper, “Instant Bliss: Enactment of Miraculous Appearance of Relics in the Hōryūji Nested Reliquary Set,” in this issue of Ars Orientalis.

47. This is observed in the analysis by Eric M. Field, “The Central Core Structural System: A Three-Dimensional Analysis of the Five-Story Pagoda of Hōryūji,” in Hōryūji Reconsidered, 27–47. For more discussion of this freestanding central pole, see Lotthar Ledderose, Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 121–27.

48. The nonstructural but indispensable central pole also was found inside the earthen core of the nine-story pagoda at the Yongning Monastery of the Northern Wei. See Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan kaogu yanjiusuo, Beiwei Luoyang Yongningsi: 1979–1994 nian kaogu fajue baogao [北魏洛阳永宁寺：1979–1994年考古发掘报告] (Yongning Monastery of the Northern Wei: Excavation reports from 1979–1994) (Beijing: Zhongguo dabaike quanshu chubanshe, 1996).

49. See Henansheng gudai jianzhu baohu yanjiusuo, “Dengfeng Songyuesi ta digong qingli jianbao” [登封嵩岳寺塔地宫清理简报] (A brief excavation report on the underground pagoda crypt at Songyue Monastery in Dengfeng), Wenwu 1 (1992), 14–25.

50. On the uncovering of the aboveground crypts, see Henansheng gudai jianzhu baohu yanjiusuo, “Dengfeng Songyuesi ta tiangong qingli jianbao.” Found in the underground crypt were several broken statues, the earliest of which has the year 523. It has been used to date the construction of the crypt. Depositing broken statues inside underground pagoda crypts as a form of relic, however, was a popular practice from the tenth to the twelfth century in the broader territory of China. In this light, the inclusion of the broken statues in this case, rather than taking place when the crypt was constructed in the sixth century, likely would have coincided with the construction of the aboveground crypts, which also contain tenth-century relics. I discuss the practice of burying broken statues in China’s Middle Period in Wei-Cheng Lin, “Broken Bodies: The Death of Buddhist Icons and Their Changing Ontology in 10th- to 12th-Century China,” forthcoming.

51. For more on the phrase “architectonic expression,” see the discussion in note 13.

52. See Xu Pingfang, “Zhongguo sheli taji kaoshu” [中国舍利塔基考述] (Investigation on China’s pagoda foundations), in Chuantong wenhua yu xiandaixing 4 (1994), 59–74.

53. See a most recent study of this topic, Ran Wenli, Zhongguo gudai sheli yimai zhidu yanjiu [中国古代舍利瘗埋制度研究] (Research on the practice of relic depository in premodern China) (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2014).

54. This is based on primarily Zhang Yuhuan, Zhongguo fota shi; Guo Daiheng, ed., Zhongguo gudai jianzhu shi: Song, Liao, Jin, Xixia jianzhu 中国古代建筑史：宋、辽、金、西夏 (Beijing: Zhongguo jianzhu gongye, 2009), 465–522.

55. There are, of course, many different ways of categorizing the pagodas built from this period, for example, by shape, structure, material, or forms of interior stairs. Variations should not be overlooked, but my purpose here is to locate a basic structural form that communicates the symbolism of the multilevel pagoda through its exterior/interior and level/elevation. The double-ring floor plan is not universal, for example, and there are several examples of single-ring plans that have only a layer of wall built up as a cylindrical tube, such as the pagoda at the Songyue Monastery. In that case, the floor plan still is laid out around a center, similar to that of the double-layer floor plan.

56. For Qianxun pagoda, see Jiang Huaiying and Qiu Xuanchong, Dali Chongshengsi san ta [大理崇圣寺三塔] (Three pagodas at Chongsheng Monastery in Dali) (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1998).

57. See Tianjinshi lishi bowuguan kaogudui and Jixian wenwu baoguansuo, “Tianjin Jixian Dulesi ta” [天津蓟县独乐寺塔] (Pagoda at Dule Monastery, Tianjin), Kaogu xuebao 1 (1989), 83–119.

58. See Zhang Buqian, “Suzhou Ruiguangsi ta” [苏州瑞光寺塔] (The pagoda at Ruiguang Monastery, Suzhou), Wenwu 10 (1965), 57–64.

59. One notable variation has a pagoda built over another smaller and earlier pagoda, so that the smaller pagoda has become the sacred center that has a vertical dimension. The best-known example of this type of pagoda is Feiying 飞英 Pagoda in Huzhou, Hebei, built in the twelfth century; see Guo Daiheng, Zhongguo jianzhu shi, 499–505. The type of nested set of pagodas made during this period was often made in miniature as a reliquary, such as the one uncovered from Ruiguang Monastery; see Seunghye Lee, “Framing and Framed: Relics, Reliquaries, and Relic Shrines in Chinese and Korean Buddhist Art from the Tenth to the Fourteenth Centuries” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2013), chap. 2.

60. See Chen Mingda, Jixian Dulesi [蓟县独乐寺] (Dule Monastery in Jixian) (Tianjin: Tianjin Daxue chubanshe, 2007); Steinhardt, Liao Architecture, 31–56.

61. For a discussion of the eleven-headed Guanyin, see Marilyn L. Gridley, Chinese Buddhist Sculpture under the Liao: Free Standing Works in Situ and Selected Examples from Public Collections (New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1993), 108–10. See also Sherman E. Lee and Wai-Kam Ho, “A Colossal Eleven-Faced Kuan-yin of the T’ang Dynasty,” Artibus Asiae 22, nos. 1/2 (1959), 121–37.

62. This three-story structure built for an iconographic program was preceded by Jin’gesi built at Mount Wutai in the eighth century; see Wei-Cheng Lin, Building a Sacred Mountain: The Buddhist Architecture of China’s Mount Wutai (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2014), chap. 5. Constructed at the same time as the Guanyin Pavilion at Dule Monastery was a similar building, a three-story Guanyin Pavilion dated to the Liao era at the Great Minzhong Monastery (Da Mingzhongsi大悯忠寺) in Youzhou (Beijing). According to the Record of Xijin [析津志], the pavilion was 20 zhang tall and a colossal statue of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara stood in the middle; and a visitor could not see the head of the bodhisattva until he reached the top floor.

63. This is noted in Steinhardt, Liao Architecture, 53–56. Steinhardt also includes another example, the Guanyin Pavilion in Fuzhou, Fujian, which has a similar window at the eye level of the colossal bodhisattva statue; see Steinhardt, Liao Architecture, 100.

64. See, for example, Xu Pingfang, “Zhongguo sheli taji kaoshu.”

65. See Steinhardt, Liao Architecture, 387–97.

66. See three works by Hsueh-man Shen: “Buddhist Relic Deposits from Tang (618–907) to Northern Song (960–1127) and Liao (907–1125),” (PhD diss., University of Oxford, 2000); “Realizing Buddha’s ‘Dharma’ Body: A Study of Liao Buddhist Relic Deposits,” Artibus Asiae 61, no. 2 (2001), 263–303; and Gilded Splendor: Treasures of China’s Liao Empire (907–1125) (New York: Asia Society, 2006). Also Steinhardt, Liao Architecture, 383–405; Youn-mi Kim, “Eternal Ritual in an Infinite Cosmos: The Chaoyang North Pagoda (1043–1044) (PhD diss., Yale University, 2010).

67. In the case of the Qianxun pagoda (see figs. 1, 11), dated to the late tenth century in Yunnan, the set of Four Directional Buddhas and the Vairocana Buddha were represented in sculpture form, buried in its interior crypts; see Jiang Huaiying and Qiu Xuanchong, Dali Chongshengsi san ta, 71–74.

68. See Liaoningsheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo, Chaoyang beita [朝阳北塔] (The Northern Pagoda in Chaoyang) (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2007).

69. This has been proposed in Hsueh-man Shen, “Realizing Buddha’s ‘Dharma’ Body,” 270, and Steinhardt, Liao Architecture, 395–97.

70. For the specific mandala, see Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, Japanese Mandalas: Representations of Sacred Geography (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i, 1999), 43.

71. In her discussion of the Chaoyang North Pagoda, Youn-mi Kim suggests that it is the empty interior inside the pagoda, rather than the pagoda structure, that represents the Vairocana Buddha; see Kim, “Eternal Ritual in an Infinite Cosmos,” 72–73.

72. For the discussion of this set of bodhisattvas, see Michelle C. Wang, “From Dhāraṇi to Maṇḍala: A Study of Mogao Cave 14 and Esoteric Buddhist Art of the Tang Dynasty (618–907)” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2008), 82–101. The iconography of the set of Eight Great Bodhisattvas carved in the relics crypt of the Chaoyang North Pagoda is likely based on the Sutra of the Mandala of the Eight Bodhisattvas (Bada pusa mantuoluo jing 八大菩薩曼陀羅經, T. 20: 1167), translated by Amoghavajra (aka Bukong, 705–774).

73. This is discussed in Kim, “Eternal Ritual in an Infinite Cosmos,” 127–29.

74. The ritual manual is called Foding zunsheng tuoluoni niansong yigui fa 佛頂尊勝陀羅尼念誦儀軌法, or The Rite for the Recitation of the Superlative Dhāraṇī of the Buddha’s Crown, in T. 19, 972. For a discussion on the ritual manual, see Lin, Building a Sacred Mountain, 139–43. See also Kuo Yiying, “Bucchōsonshō darani no denpa to gishiki” [佛頂尊勝陀羅尼の伝播と儀式] (The Dissemination and Rituals of the Sutra of the Superlative Dhāraṇī of the Buddha’s Crown), Tendai gakuhō, special issue (October 2007), 1–39; Paul Copp, The Body Incantatory: Spells and the Ritual Imagination in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014).

75. This is observed in Sekino Tadashi and Takeshima Takuichi, Ryō, Kin jidai no kenchiku to sono butsuzō: zuban [遼金時代の建築とその仏像：図版] (Architecture of the Liao-Jin period and its Buddhist icons: Illustrations) (Tokyo: Tōhō Bunka Gakuin Tōkyō Kenkyūjo, 1934), 1–6.

76. See Shenyangsi wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo, “Shenyang Xinmin Liaobinta tagong qingli jianbao” [沈阳新民辽滨塔塔宫清理简报] (A brief excavation report on the interior crypts of Liaobin Pagoda, in Xinmin, Shenyang), Wenwu 4 (2006), 47–57.

77. A comparable example is the Relic Pagoda of Stainless Pure Light (Wugou jingguang sheli ta 無垢淨光舍利塔), also located in Shenyang. Inside are three aboveground crypts; the middle crypt was set up as an altar with a bronze statue. The statue is most likely Vairocana Buddha, although its mudra is a slight variant from the Vairocana image inside Liaobin Pagoda in fig. 21. See Shenyangshi wenwu guanli bangongshi and Shenyangshi wenwu kaogu gongzuodui, “Shenyang Tawan Wugoujingguan shelita tagong qingli baogao” [沈阳塔湾無垢净光舍利塔塔宫清理報告] (An excavation report on Relic Pagoda of Stainless Pure Light in Tawan, Shenyang), Liaohai wenwu xuekan 2 (1986), 2146–155.

78. See Kim, “Eternal Ritual in an Infinite Cosmos,” 159. Indeed, scholars have reminded us about this performative aspect in mandalas and dhāraṇī; see Eugene Wang, “Ritual Practice without Its Practitioner? Early Eleventh-Century Dhāraṇī Prints in the Ruiguangsi Pagoda,” in Tenth-Century China and Beyond: Art and Visual Culture in a Multi-Centered Age, ed. Wu Hung (Chicago: Center for the Art of East Asia, 2012), 179–211; and Copp, The Body Incantatory.

79. See De Xin, Zhang Hanjun, and Han Renxin, “Neimenggu Balinyouqi Qingzhou Baita faxian Liaodai Fojiao wenwu” [内蒙古巴林右旗庆州白塔发现辽代佛教文物] (Buddhist artifacts uncovered from White Pagoda of Qingzhou, in Balinyouqi, Inner Mongolia), Wenwu 12 (1994), 4–33.

80. See Hsueh-man Shen, “Praying for Eternity: Use of Buddhist Texts in Liao Buddhist and Funerary Practices,” in Gilded Splendor, 82–84.

81. The sutra, Great Dhāraṇī Sutra of Stainless Pure Light, is titled, in Chinese, Wugou jingguang da tuoluoni jing 無垢淨光大陀羅尼經 (Raśmivimalaviśuddha-prabhānāma-dhāraṇī-sūtra), in T. 19, 1024. The sutra includes five great dhāraṇīs, one of which is Dhāraṇī Inside the Cavity of Chattra, or Xiangluntang zhong tuoluoni fa 相輪樘中陀羅尼法, in T. 19, 1024.719a9-b4. See Shen, “Praying for Eternity,” 84.

82. See Wugou jingguang da tuoluoni jing, T. 19, 1024.719a24-28.

83. For a discussion on the ritual circumambulation around a pagoda, see Lin, Building a Sacred Mountain, 25–27; Eugene Y. Wang, “Watching the Steps: Peripatetic Vision in Medieval China,” in Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance: Seeing as Others Saw, ed. Robert S. Nelson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), esp. 123–30.

84. Dharam relics refer to Buddhist texts deposited into the pagoda and treated as relics. The origin of the relationship between text and pagoda can be traced back to the fifth and sixth centuries in China, but as Hsueh-man Shen suggests, the practice of depositing sutra texts inside the pagoda was conducted with particular rigor during this period, especially in Liao territory; see Shen, “Realizing Buddha’s ‘Dharma’ Body” and “Praying for Eternity.” For the early relation between text and pagoda, see Katherine R. Tsiang, “Monumentalization of Buddhist Texts in the Northern Qi Dynasty: The Engraving of Sūtras in Stone at the Xiangtangshan Caves and Other Sites in the Sixth Century,” Artibus Asiae 56, nos. 3/4 (1996), 233–61. In addition, based on examples from around the tenth and eleventh centuries, found in Dunhuang and elsewhere, scriptures such as the Lotus Sutra were written in patterns that formed a pagoda shape; see Yang Baoyi, “Taxing jing tantao” [塔形經探討] (A review on the pagoda-shape scripture), Gugong wenwu yuekan, no. 373 (April 2014), 74–85.

85. De Xin, Zhang Hanjun, and Han Renxin, “Neimenggu Balinyouqi Qingzhou Baita,” 19.

86. See the Lotus Sutra, T. 9, 262.31.b26-29. My translation is adapted from Charlotte Eubanks, Miracles of Book and Body: Buddhist Textual Culture and Medieval Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 178.

87. The ritual related to the Lotus Sutra, for example, can be found in Zhiyi 智顗 (538–598), Fahua sanmei chanyi 法華三昧懺儀 (The Procedure for [Performing] the Lotus Samādhi Repentance), T. 46, 1941; see Daniel B. Stevenson, “The Four Kinds of Samādhi in Early T’ien-t’ai Buddhism,” in Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism, ed. Peter N. Gregory (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1986), 45–97; Shi Shengyan, “Zhongguo fojia yi Fahuajing wei jichu de xiuxing fangfa” [中國佛教以法華經為基礎的修行方法] (The methods of religious practice based on the Lotus Sutra in Chinese Buddhism), Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal 7 (1994), 2–14.

88. Eubanks, Miracles of Book and Body, 177–78.

89. Its construction method was included in the building treatise for the first time during the Northern Song period, in juan 23 of the Yingzao fashi 營造法式, or Building Treatise, compiled in 1103. See L. Carrington Goodrich, “The Revolving Book-Case in China,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 7, no. 2 (1942), 130–61; Qinghua Guo, “The Architecture of Joinery: The Form and Construction of Rotating Sutra-Case Cabinets,” Architectural History 42 (1999), 96–109; Zhang Shiqing, “Zhong ri fojiao zhuanlun jingcang de yuanliu yu xingzhi” [中日佛教转轮经藏的源流与形制] (The transmission and style of the rotating sutra cabinet in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism), Jianzhu shi lunwen ji 11 (1999), 60–71.

90. See Eubanks, Miracles of Books and Body, 181–83.

91. See Charlotte Eubanks, “Circumambulatory Reading: Revolving Sutra Libraries and Buddhist Scrolls,” Book History 13 (2010), 1–24. For the Tibetan prayer wheels, although the discussion is later, see The Wheel of Great Compassion: The Practice of the Prayer Wheel in Tibetan Buddhism, ed. Lorne Ladner (Boston: Wisdom Publication, 2000).

92. Although used in a different context, here “mechanism” is a kind of technology that facilitates human actions; this idea is explored insightfully in Bruno Latour, “Mixing Humans and Nonhumans Together: The Sociology of a Door-Closer,” in Rethinking Technology: Reader in Architectural Theory, ed. William W. Braham and Jonathan A. Hale (London: Routledge, 2007), 308–24.

93. See Chen Mingda, Yingxian muta [应县木塔] (Timber pagoda in Yingxian) (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1966); Steinhardt, Liao Architecture, 103–21.

94. See the discussion in Shen, “Realizing the Buddha’s ‘Dharma’ Body,” 292–294.

95. See Shanxisheng wenwuju and Zhongguo lishi bowuguan, Yingxian muta Liaodai micang [应县木塔辽代秘藏] (The secret treasures from the Timber Pagoda in Yingxian) (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1991), 11–17.

96. Chen Mingda, Yingxian muta, 36–40.

97. There are different combinations of the seven Buddhas of the past; the most commonly referenced set includes Vipaśyin, Śikhin, Viśvabhū, Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni, Kāśyapa, and Śākyamuni.

98. See Shen, “Realizing Buddha’s ‘Dharma’ Body,” 292–93.

99. The concept and importance of ding, or the Buddha crown, is detailed in Lin, Building a Sacred Mountain, 135–38.

100. Chen Mingda, Yingxian muta, 34.

101. The term “knowledge-space” is borrowed from David Turnbull, Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers: Comparative Studies in the Sociology and Indigenous Knowledge (Singapore: Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000).

102. Luo Zhao, “Yingxian muta suxiang de zongjiao chongbai xitong” [應縣木塔塑像的宗教崇拜系統] (The system of religious veneration for the sculpture inside the Timber Pagoda in Yingxian), Yishushi yanjiu 12 (2010), 189–216.

103. Bernard Faure, “The Buddhist Icon and the Modern Gaze,” Critical Inquiry 24, no. 3 (spring 1998), 809.