Thousand Buddha Pottery Pagoda

The Thousand Buddha Potter Pagoda was built at the gate of Yongquan Temple on Gushan Mountain, which is situated in the east suburb of Fuzhou City, Fujian Province.

It was originally built in Longrui Temple and moved to the present site in 1972 due to the original temple collapsed. Two pagodas stand at both sides of it, with Grandeur Misfortune Thousand Buddha Pagoda in the east and Puxian Misfortune Thousand Buddha Pagoda in the west. The Pagoda was fired in the fifth year (1082) of the Yuanfeng reign of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), and has nine storeys. Each of the two pagodas is 6.83 meters high with a pedestal of 1.2m in diameter. The pagoda body draws in upward storey by storey in a delicate shape. All parts of the pagoda body, namely, door, windows, pillars, pagoda eave, corbel arch, rafter, and rows of tile, etc, were glazed section by section after clay moulds were made into wood-like structures and then assembled together by mortise. In this way, baking, moving and assembling became much easier.

The Pagoda is magnificent with 1,078 figures of Buddha adhered to the pagoda body of every floor. Buddha's warrior attendants in different postures are carved on the pedestal of the Pagoda, together with images of running lions, and all kinds of flowers. On the end of every eave is Eave Guard Buddha, while on the eave corner there are wind bells. The Pagoda takes the shape of a three-layer gourd, with a pearl on the top. On the pagoda pedestal, there are also names of almgivers and craftsmen in addition to the Pagoda's name and the year of its establishment.

The Pagoda, painted with purplish bronze glaze, is an important material object for research on the development of Chinese pottery-making art. And the great Pottery Pagoda, with so heavy a body and so elegant the shape, is unique in the history of pagoda architecture.