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NINGXIA: Chengtiansi Pagoda
Known popularly as the Western Pagoda, the Chengtiansi Pagoda is a 64.5-meter-high octagonal structure in the Chengtian Temple in the southwest corner of Yinchuan. A vaulted archway conducts directly into the pagoda, in which a flight of wooden stairs provides access to the 11 wooden floors. According to history books, after the death of Zhao Yuanhao, the founding king of the Western Xia Kingdom, his mother conscripted tens of thousands of solders in 1050 for the construction of the Chengtian Temple and a pagoda of the same name as a token of her wish for the longevity of Zhao Liang, the child king who had just been enthroned. After both buildings were completed five or six years later, she had what were believed to be the bones of Sakyamuni contained in coffins made of gold and silver and buried under the pagoda, thereby turning the place into a famous Buddhist sanctuary of the Western Xia Kingdom. Today, housed in the temple and the pagoda is the Museum of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
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