Textual Research And Investigation Of Liao Pagoda

Around the 10th century,Khitan nomads rose gradually in the northern grassland of China.In the warlike Five Dynasties.Liao Dynasty developed with a steady pace,who recaptured the You and Yun states in AD 938,what’s more,signed the Chanyuan Pact with Song Dynasty in AD 1005.This dynasty lasted for 219 years.During this period,the emperors insisted on contributing Buddhism temples and pagodas,which widely distributed throughout Liao primitive region.Liao Pagoda has a large amount of existing instances extremely to 80,while the number of the construction in history was far more than this.That’s why this issue try to roughly sorted out a catalogue of pagoda in Liao Dynasty,by checking the refernces such as Local Chronicles,Jin Shi Chi(inscriptions on ancient bronzes and stone tablets),the investigation by Japanese and Republic of China era,the mapping data and archaeological excavation of official institutions after 1949.As a result,this paper analise more than 170 cases.Based on the systematical list of the basic information,this work try to generalize the building types,plane,layout in temple and the distribution of time,drawing a distribution map of Liao pagoda in the whole territory.Then,with the perspectives of the brick wall hanging statues and Buddhist relics,this article intend to reveal the connotation of the Liao Buddhism reflected by the pagoda.