The Pagoda Temple

Buddhism came to China from India in the first century CE.  It faced a society that boasted an already well-established civilization.  This ancient society considered itself the only truly "civilized" society on earth.  It took a long and difficult struggle for the new belief of Buddhism to take root.  It probably only survived because it was able to adapt to China's traditional native teachings- Confucianism and Taoism.  Buddhism did not try to replace them.

The Chinese are believed to have first come into contact with Buddhism through central Asians traveling in the north or northwest.  Later, between the 7th and 10th centuries, it literally flooded in.  It came in with other religions and sects from the West across the deserts, mountains, and steppes of the Silk Road.  Of course, Buddhism eventually came under the power of the imperial edict which was issued in 845 CE.  This edict declared that all imported foreign influence (including religions) had gone far enough!

While chastened, Buddhism has survived.  In China's northeast there are many fine temples such as the Jinganzuo Sheli Pagoda, near the old wall of Huhehaote in Inner Mongolia.  It was built as late as the Qing dynasty and exhibits a mixture of Han, Mongol, and Tibetan Buddhist influences.  Sheli Pagoda is the only section of the much larger Cideng Monastery that has managed to withstand the hardships of time.  It consists of five square-shaped brick and stone towers and faced with glazed tiles.  It is mounted on a stone base.  It is an example of a very rare form of Buddhist architecture. 

Harlan Urwiler

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