CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

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Gilt bronze pagoda
Height 53.5(1973)
Tang Dynasty, seventh to eighth century CE
From the pagoda of the Famen Monastery at Fufeng,
Shaanxi Province
Famensi Museum, Fufeng, Shaanxi Province
Washington only
In India, the stupa, originally a funerary monument,
was the symbol of the historical Buddha's nirvana —
his release from the karmic cycle of rebirth and
suffering. As the repository of his relics, it was at
the center of monastic architecture and monastic
worship. In China, its importance was reflected in
the lofty forms of multistoried pagodas, in which
only the topmost ornaments preserved the hemispherical
form of the Indian original. Later exam-
468 | EARLY IMPERIAL CHINA