pagoda

pagoda, a towerlike, multistory, solid or hollow structure made of stone, brick, or wood, usually associated with a Buddhist temple complex and therefore usually found in East and Southeast Asia, where Buddhism was long the prevailing religion.

The pagoda structure derives from that of the stupa, a hemispherical, domed, commemorative monument first constructed in ancient India. Initially, these structures symbolized sacred mountains, and they were used to house relics or remains of saints and kings. Stupas evolved into several distinct forms in various parts of Asia. The finial, the decorative crowning ornament of the stupa, likely has roots in Hinduism, which predates Buddhism, in the symbols of yoni and lingam. Its design gradually became more elongated and cylindrical until the stupa’s upper portion took on an attenuated towerlike appearance.

This stupa shape was adopted by Buddhism as an appropriate form for a monument enshrining sacred relics. In China this purpose gave birth to a unique structure, the small underground structure known as the “dragon palace” or “dragon cave,” consisting chiefly of a brick- or stone-lined room. This enclosure, which was sometimes decorated with murals, held a container in which relics and funerary objects had been placed. The container holding the sacred objects was usually placed within one or even several larger containers. The outermost container was covered by the pagoda’s base, and, as the structure type evolved, the base became more elaborate, eventually taking the form of a pedestal. These pedestals were often decorated and, in later developments, dominated the body of the pagodas they supported.

With the growth and development of commerce and mercantile interests, by both land and sea, came the spread of Buddhist missions as well. There followed a process known to scholars as the Indianization of other regions of Asia. As the structures and practices of Buddhism came to dominate these areas, so too were these features absorbed into the various cultures they influenced. In Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos the pagoda took on a pyramidal or conical shape, and in China, Korea, and Japan it evolved into the towerlike structure that constitutes the best-known pagoda form. The latter was a tall tower consisting of the vertical repetition of a basic story unit in regularly diminishing proportions. Particular styles become typical to a region. In Japan, for example, the five-story pagoda is common, with each story representing one of the five elements: earth, water, fire, wind, and void (sky, heaven). The finial is also divided into five parts. The shape of the stories varies; they can be circular, square, or polygonal. Each story in an East Asian pagoda has its own prominent projecting bracketed roof line, and the whole structure is capped by a mast and disks. In general, the pagoda form is intended primarily as a monument, and often it has very little usable interior space.

One of China’s oldest surviving pagodas is at Songyue Monastery on Mount Song in Henan province. It is a 12-sided stone structure built during the Bei (Northern) Wei dynasty (386–534/535 ce) of the Six Dynasties period. The Hōryū Temple in Nara prefecture, Japan, rebuilt after a fire in 670, is part of a group of Buddhist monuments in the area that were awarded World Heritage status in 1993. Built of wood, which is more flexible than stone or brick—an important quality in a region subject to earthquakes—it was also joined without the use of nails, also for reasons of flexibility. Although many examples exist elsewhere, Korea’s distinctive contribution was its use of stone (usually granite) in pagoda construction. Among the especially well-known pagodas of Southeast Asia are Shwe Dagon, the Golden Pagoda, in Yangon, Myanmar; the Phra Pathom Chedi in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand; the Silver Pagoda (officially Wat Preah Keo Morokat, “Temple of the Emerald Buddha”) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; and the That Luang (Grand Stupa) in Vientiane, Laos.