Songyue Pagoda
嵩岳寺塔
Songyue Pagoda is situated in Songyue Temple in the south of Mount Song and at the foot of Taishi Mountain, where all is nestling among the mountains and in the folds of the forests and mountains , the spring water streams, and the birds twitter, making people there bathed in the scenery of serenity and grace as if in the paradise. Initially built in the year 509 and the Summer Palace of Emperor Xuangwu of Northern Wei, Songyue Temple was later transformed into a buddhist temple At the time, it was very large in size and at its heyday, as could be proved by the fact that Emperor Wu Zetian in the Tang Dynasty once took it as her temporary dwelling place when visiting Mount Song. Songyue Pagoda, built in the first year of Zhengguang of Northern Wei, namely in the year 520, was, among the existing pagodas with the dense-eaves types, the earliest one. The whole pagoda, assuming a graceful parabola shape, is exquisite in design and considered to be the classic of the pagodas with the dense-eaves types. With a height of 39. 8 meters, a circumference of 33.7 meters and a thickness of 2.45 meters, it has i5 tiers equilateral-dodecagoned dense eaves as the body and is the only example of its kind among the various kinds of ancient pagodas extant in our country. The pagoda, composed of the base, the body, the dense eaves and the finial, was built with the bluish bricks, it is hollow inside and tube-shaped.There are between the tiers such things as the doors, mullion windows and carved animals, the design of which is ingenious, unique and spectacular. Songyue Pagoda, boasting a height of almost 40 meters and a history of over 1400 years, can be considered one of the extremely fine craftsmanships. The modern scientific principles in geology, geometry, physics and chemistry were applied, and the building materials, namely the small bluish bricks and glutinous rice juice, firmly agglutinated together. Songyue Pagoda, given its unique shape, became a masterpiece in the ancient Chinese architectural history, and is of great research value in the architecture.
嵩岳寺塔位于嵩山南麓，太室山脚下的嵩岳寺内，这里群山环抱、山林掩局映、泉水淙淙、鸟语和鸣、景色清幽雅致，一派人间仙景。嵩岳寺始建于公元509年，原来是宣武帝的离官，后改为佛教寺院。当时的嵩岳寺规模宏大，盛极一时，武则天游嵩山时，曾把这里作为行官。嵩岳寺塔建于北魏正光元年，公元520年，是我国现存年代最早的密檐式砖塔，大塔整个外形呈现出优美的抛物线形，设计绝妙，堪称密檐式塔的经典之作。大塔高39.8米，周长33.7米，壁厚2.45米，塔身平面为等边十二角形15层密檐，是我国现存各类古塔中的孤例，全塔由基台，塔身，密檐和塔刹四部分组成，用青灰条砖垒砌，塔身中空，呈筒状。各塔层之间均有壶门，棂窗，雕兽等，精巧独特，雄伟壮观，形制独特。嵩岳寺塔高近40米，历经1400多年，气势高危的古塔可谓鬼斧神工，整座大塔运用了地质、几何、物理、化学等现代科学原理，所用的建筑材料系小青砖、糯米汁、粘结牢固，嵩岳寺塔以它独有的造型成为中国古建筑史上的千古绝唱，在建筑学上有着极高的研究价值。