Shaolin Temple And Songyue Temple Pagoda

Songshan Shaolin scenery site is world famous tourist attraction and in the first group of 5A national scenery sites. It has unique natural sceneries and rich cultural landscape. Major cultural scenery sites, focusing in an area of 2.18 m2 include Shaolin temple, world’s first temple and origin of Zen and Shaolin Kongfu, China’s most intact and largest existing group of pagodas, China’s earliest stone temple Shaoshique, Kongfu gallery, Bodhidharma Cave, Zhuzuan, Erzuan, Shifang Zen temple, and Ganlutai observation. Natural sceneries are mostly located in Sanhuangzhai village of Shaoshishan Mt., which has experienced the three greatest mountain making movements of Songyang, Zhongyuan and Shaolin Mountains with best representative site at Songshan world geological park. Other representative sites include Monkey Watching Sky, Yunfenghuxiao, sunset and Shaoshi in autumn.

The Shaolin Pagoda Forest, burial site of Shaolin's eminent monks, gets its name from its dense pagodas. Per Buddhist traditions, disciples built pagodas of varying sizes for deceased monks—scale reflecting their achievements, status, knowledge, reputation, and standing—resulting in numerous different-sized pagodas. China's largest existing stupa group, it has 228 stone stupas from seven dynasties (Tang, Five Dynasties, Song, Jin, Yuan, Ming, Qing), plus 3 modern pagodas and 14 stone sculptures. Their shapes, decorations, construction, and carving techniques record architectural styles of their eras, showing stupa art evolution since the Tang and Sino-foreign Buddhist exchanges. Hailed as an "ancient pagoda art museum," it offers tangible materials for researching ancient Chinese architecture, sculpture, and religion.

Songyue Temple Pagoda, in Songyue Temple, is the most significant remaining structure (with Daxiongbaodian, Jialandian, Liuzudian) and of high architectural/tourism value. Built in 520–524 AD (Northern Wei Emperor Xiaoming’s reign), over 1,400 years old, it is China’s oldest existing pagoda and the earliest in Songshan. Integrating geology, geometry, physics and chemistry, it’s a rare ancient architectural relic, listed in 1961 as first-batch national key cultural relics. 40 meters tall with 15 floors, it has underground palace, base, body and top decorations. Its lower half is robust, middle narrow with gentle eaves—sturdy yet light. As China’s first pagoda with parabolic outline, it influenced pagoda architecture for a millennium.