Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/571

 CHAP. III. T'AIS OR PAGODAS, 469 attached to the mosque founded there in the 9th century of our era, by the grandson of Harun al Rashid, there still exists a minaret in brick, about 160 ft. in height, with spiral passage winding round, almost identical with that represented in one of these Chinese drawings, being crowned with a circular turret instead of the pavilion shown in the Chinese drawing. There are no examples in China with external winding paths or flights of steps, these latter are usually enclosed within the brick walls, which are sometimes of great thickness, those in the Pa-li Chwang Pagoda, near Pekin, measuring 18 ft. In the Tien-pong-tah, the hexagonal seven-storeyed pagoda at Ningpo, which is 160 ft. high, there is a flight of narrow steps ascending spirally within the walls. Again, according to Dr. Bushell, 1 in his work on Chinese Art, the first large buildings described in the oldest canonical books are the lofty square towers in stone called t'at of which there are three kinds, viz. : for astronomical purposes, for watch towers and for treasuries or storerooms. The traditional representations of these are those found in the observatory of Pekin, a square tower on the city wall, the towers of the great wall, which are built in stone with arched heads to both doors and windows, showing that, as might have been expected from their early contact with Chaldea, the Chinese were well acquainted with both arch and vault, and the square towers occasionally on the entrance gateways to the towns and elsewhere on the city walls which are now utilised as military storerooms ; to these might be added the t'ais or pagodas, which though octagonal instead of square on plan, now sometimes serve as repositories for numerous statues of Buddha. Whatever their origin may have been, the t'ais are now identified more with geomancy than with the Buddhist religion, and although some of them contain idols, and in the north have frequently a statue of Buddha on the lower storey, above they con- sist of solid walls with external balconies used as belvederes or watch towers. The number of these pagodas throughout the county is very great, and no town is said to be complete without one or more. Of those which existed in China in our own time the best known is the celebrated porcelain tower at Nankin 2 (Woodcut No. 499). Commenced in the year 1412, and finished in 1431, it was erected as a monument of gratitude to an empress of the Ming family, and was, in consequence, generally called the Temple of Gratitude. It was octagonal in form, 236 ft. in height, of which, however, about 30 ft. must 1 'Chinese Art,' p. 52. 8 The tower was destroyed in 1854 during the Taeping rebellion.