The pagoda comprises eight different
elements for assembly.

1. A Parcel Gilt-Silver Lotus Base
2. A Parcel Gilt-Silver Lokapala. The half bodied figure is made to sit within the lotus, the left held high with an open palm, as if holding up an object.
3. A Parcel Gilt-Silver Cover/Base
4. A Gold Reliquary urn
5. A Hexagonal Gold Pagoda structure
6. A Gold Lotus-Shaped Decorative Roof
Element
7. A Hexagonal Gold Roof
8. A Gold Spire

The pagoda, or in Sanskrit, the stupa, is the most resonant symbol of the Buddha’s transcendence. At the time, stupas were built over the mortal remains or relics of Sakyamuni Buddha, but they came, eventually, to symbolize the faith. In the period before the Buddha was portrayed as an image, the stupa was the most common symbol.

The Tang period stupa in the present exhibition is particularly rare, as extant examples are usually from the following Liao period (907-1125) or the Song dynasties (906-1279). For a Liao Dynasty gold pagoda with an elaborate spire and pendant bells hanging from chains excavated from Beita at Chaoyang, Liaoning Province, see Deydier and Wei, L’or de la Chine Ancienne, pl. 501. Another gold square shaped example from the same site, with Buddhas incised on the four walls, was in the exhibition, Gems of China’s Cultural Relics, 1990, Beijing, catalogue no. 151; no. 152 being another elaborate, large hexagonal three tiered gilt-silver pagoda with a tall spire, from the same site. Three other Northern Song examples in silver or giltsilver are illustrated in Zhongguo Wenwu Jinghua Daquan, Volume on Gold, Silver, Jade and Stone; gold and silver ware section, nos. 138, 140 and 141; only the first is hexagonal, the others four-sided.

The present gold stupa resting on a tall stemmed lotus flower recalls the famous 7th Century Hakuho period Chinese-inspired Japanese bronze triad within Lady Tachibana’s shrine from the Horyu-ji temple, Nara; see Special Exhibition Tempyo, the Magnificent Heritage from the Days of the Great Buddha, 1998, Nara National Museum, catalogue no. 4-1. The Buddha and flanking bodhisattvas are borne on long-stemmed lotus flowers rising from a rectangular base, cast with waves and lotus pads, symbolizing Amitabha’s Paradise of the West. The miniature half bodied gilt-silver lokapala, Vaishravana, within the lotus flower on the example here is unusal. In Tang style he is normally shown as a free standing sculpture of one of the Four Heavenly Kings, holding up a pagoda. He represents the Protector of the Faith.