Qualla: Chaoyang North Tower

Chaoyang North Tower: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 猫猫的日记本, CC BY-SA 4.0. Dig beneath the Chaoyang North Tower and you descend through Chinese history itself. When archaeologists began a major restoration in 1984, they discovered something extraordinary beneath this 42.6-meter brick pagoda in Liaoning Province: layer upon layer of rammed-earth foundations, each belonging to a different dynasty. The Sixteen Kingdoms period, the Northern Wei, the Sui, the Tang, the Liao -- five ages of construction compressed into a single site, each generation building atop the bones of the last. The Chinese call it the "Pagoda of Five Ages with One Body," and the name is not poetic license. It is an archaeological fact.

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Image: 猫猫的日记本 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Chaoyang North Tower: Empress, Emperor, and the Relay of Faith

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 猫猫的日记本, CC BY-SA 4.0. The tower's story begins in the Northern Wei Dynasty, when Empress Dowager Feng ordered its construction on a site already layered with the palace ruins of three earlier Yan kingdoms. She named it Siyan Buddhism. In 602, during the Sui Dynasty, Emperor Wen sent Buddha relics to Y...

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Image: 猫猫的日记本 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Chaoyang North Tower: The Buddhas of Four Directions

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 猫猫的日记本, CC BY-SA 4.0. The tower as it stands today is a thirteen-story square brick pagoda with a hollow interior rising from a Sumeru base. Its four faces each display a Tantric Vajradhara Buddha seated in the lotus position, crowned and robed: Akshobhya with elephant seats on the east, Amitabha with...

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Image: 猫猫的日记本 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Chaoyang North Tower: Treasures of the Underground Palace

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 猫猫的日记本, CC BY-SA 4.0. The tower contains two hidden chambers. High above, in the Heavenly Palace within the twelfth floor of the eaves, archaeologists in 1988 unearthed two Shakyamuni relics -- among the most sacred objects in Buddhist tradition -- sealed inside a gold-covered agate jar. Below, a corr...

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Image: 猫猫的日记本 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Chaoyang North Tower: Resurrection of a Landmark

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 红烧腰果, CC BY 4.0. The comprehensive restoration from 1984 to 1992, funded by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, returned the Chaoyang North Tower to something approaching its original appearance. In 1988, the tower was designated a national key cultural relic protection unit. Two years...

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Image: 红烧腰果 | CC BY 4.0