Longhua Pagoda and Longhua Temple

Shanghai, as an international metropolis, has been famous for its high-rise buildings for over a century. If we were to go back to the 10th century to look for the tallest building in the city, it probably would be the Longhua Pagoda in Longhua Temple.

The historical origin of Longhua Temple is quite legendary. As recorded by Zhang Chen of the Qing Dynasty, in the 5th year of the Chiwu Period of the State of Wu (242) in the Three Kingdoms period, Kang Senghui, a man from the West Regions, passed by Longhua Lake on his way from Jiaozhi to Jian-ye (present-day Nanjing). He found that the water and the sky were merged into one color, with green weeds every-where; a place far from the crowds and peaceful for meditation. So he set hands to build a temple there. Later, Kang Senghui went to Jianye and presented himself to Sun Quan, the ruler of the State of Wu, and was granted permission to build 13 stupas.

Since then, for over a thousand years, Longhua Temple has been rebuilt several times and has gone through ups and downs. The main body of the existing Longhua Temple complex was built in the Tongzhi and Guangxu periods of the Qing Dynasty, retaining the “seven-halled temple” type of Zen in the Song Dynasty. There are memorial archways and mountain gates on the central axis. The first row is the Maitreya Hall, with the Bell Tower and Drum Tower in triple-layer cornices on both sides. The second row is the Heavenly King Hall. The third row is the five-room wide Great Shrine Hall. The fourth row is the Hall of the Three Sages. The fifth row is the Abbot's Room, and the sixth row is the Scripture Tower. Among them, the Great Shrine Hall and the Hall of the Three Sages are in the styles of double eaves and East Asian hip-and-gable roof, very magnificent. In 1959,Longhua Temple was listed as a Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the Shanghai Municipal Level.

The Longhua Pagoda stands opposite Longhua Temple. Its body and base were originally built in the Northern Song Dynasty, boasting more than a thousand years of history. In the 1920s, its flat seat and railings were reinforced with cement, and in 1954, it underwent a renovation and was restored to the appearance of the pagoda.

Standing 40.347 metres tall, the Longhua Pagoda is a brick and wood structure with seven storeys and eight sides. The outer wall of the pagoda is octagonal and is decorated with red wood-like brick beams. The interior is a square space, with the bottom floor big and tall, and the area and height of each floor gradually shrinking upward to form dense eaves. Each storey, with eight sides, is set with Kunmen (like a doorway) style doors and shrines in an alternating manner, and the positions of these doors and shrines rotate by 45 degrees on each floor. Under each floor is a hidden brick arch. The entasis of each arch is divided into three parts. The corner on the outer eaves is paved in an arch style named “yuanyangjiaoshou”. The column heads of the colonnaded walkway around the pagoda on the ground floor are spindle shaped, and the square-column is decorated with seven red decorative features and eight white ones. The foundation of the Longhua Pagoda adopts the way of timber pile and pile cap, which reflects the wisdom of artisans in building high-rises on soft soil foundation. In 2006, the Longhua Pagoda was listed as a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level.