The Three Pagodas was initially built for auspicious reasons. According to local legends, Dali was once a swamp inhabited by breeding dragons before the humans arrived. As the dragons, which were believed to deliberately create natural disasters to dispel human intruders, revered pagodas, the Three Pagodas were built to deter the dragons.
The Three Pagodas are well known for their resilience; they have endured several man-made and natural catastrophes over more than one thousand years. Their mother building was known as Chongsheng Monastery (pinyin Chong Sheng Si, also known as SanTa Si, Tianlong Si) and was once the royal temple of the Kingdom of Dali and one of the largest Buddhist centers in south-east Asia. It was originally built at the same time as the first pagoda, but was destroyed in a fire during the rule of the Qing Dynasty. The temple was later rebuilt in 2005. It was recorded that Qianxun Pagoda had been split in an earthquake on May 6, 1515 AD (Ming Dynasty). However, it miraculously recovered ten days later in an aftershock.
Three pagodas, about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) northwest of the ancient city of Dali, occupying a scenic location at the foot of Mt. Cangshan facing Erhai Lake, has a history of over 1,800 years. It is a symbol of the history of Dali City, and a record of the development of Buddhism in the area. As its name implies, Three Pagodas are made of three ancient independent pagodas forming a symmetrical triangle.
The main Three pagodas, known as Qianxun Pagoda (pinyin Qian Xun Ta), reportedly built during 824-840 AD by king Quan Fengyou of the Nanzhao state, is 69.6 meters high and is one of the tallest pagodas in China’s history. The central pagoda is square shaped and composed of sixteen stories; each story has multiple tiers of upturned eaves. There is a carved shrine containinNVm0185gRxE/TW4UOsNyxYI/AAAAAAAACX0/EY0FpsBpJgU/s1600/three-pagodas-china.jpg a white marble sitting Buddha statue at the center of each façade of every story.
The Three pagoda as body of the pagoda is hollow from the first to the eighth story, surrounded with 3.3 meters thick walls. In 1978, more than 700 Buddhist antiques, including sculptures made of gold, silver, wood or crystal and documents, were found in the body during a major repairing work. The designers of the pagoda are supposed to have come from Xi’an, the capital of Tang Dynasty at that time and the location of another pagoda, Small Wild Goose Pagoda, which shares the similar style but is one hundred years older.
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