Yongfeng Pagoda 永丰塔

About Yongfeng Pagoda

The pagoda is octagonal in plan, built in the pavilion style, with arched doorways on the east, south, west and north faces of each level. The Juye county gazetteer preserves a tradition that Tang builders began the tower and Song builders finished it; research places the standing structure in the Jiayou reign of the Northern Song, roughly a thousand years ago. The gazetteer also records that the pagoda originally rose seven storeys and that flooding silt in the early Ming buried the lowest two, so five levels now stand above ground to a height of 30.3 metres. The lowest surviving level contains a core chamber entered from the north door, and six Song-dynasty Buddhist stone images are set into its walls.

Those carvings came from Dafo Temple, the monastery that once enclosed the pagoda and gave it its alternative name of Dafo Temple Pagoda; the temple itself no longer survives, and the tower stands alone beside water at the edge of the town. Cultural-heritage authorities describe it as an early, well-preserved and representative Buddhist pagoda of south-western Shandong, valued for the building technique its brickwork records. In 2013 the State Council included it in the seventh batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level, one of five sites in Heze added in that round.

What to look for

• The eaves treatment, which changes as the tower rises: the first storey has plain corbelled brick eaves without bracket sets, while the levels above carry carved brick bracket arms.
• The core chamber at the base, reached through the north doorway, with six Song-dynasty Buddhist stone images fixed into its walls during repairs in 1961.
• The arched doorways on all four cardinal faces of each level, some of which open into light wells and some into an internal gallery.
• The pagoda reflected in the water beside it, a view long recorded locally as Fanta zhaohui, the Buddhist pagoda at sunrise.
• The Confucian temple immediately to the north, which the pagoda adjoins at the edge of the old county town.

Location & getting there

Getting to Yongfeng Pagoda

Check which interiors and courtyards are accessible. Active places of worship and protected monuments may have different visitor rules.

• Search for 永丰塔 with 菏泽市 and 巨野县.