The dagoba was originally situated in front of the Yellow Crane Pavilion. Although not very high, it could be seen afar by ships coming and going. Because it looks like a lantern, it was also called Kong Ming Lantern. In 1955, when the Yangtze River Bridge in Wuhan was built, the dagoba was moved to Snake Hill.
Shengxiang Dagoba was built in 1343 in the Yuan Dynasty for enshrining Buddhist relics and keeping musical instruments used in Buddhist celebrations and was called a daputi (big bodhi) dagoba.
It is a typical Yuan Dynasty inverted-bowl-style dagoba, 9.36 meters high. It is mainly stone; only a few bricks were used for constructing its chamber. It is divided into three parts -- the Sumeru pedestal, the inverted-bowl- shaped main body and the steeple. Carved on the pedestal are images of cloud gods, animals, lotus petals, weapons of celestial guards and Sanskrit. The main body is in the shape of a plain white inverted bowl. The pedestal of the steeple is also a Sumeru pedestal, and the steeple's main body is made up of thirteen tiers of discs topped by lotus petals supporting a stone canopy. Carved at the bottom of the main body are designs of flowers. The tip of the steeple is an iron vase.
The dagoba is hollow and has no underground palace. A column carved with Buddhist scriptures has been found in the sealed chamber of the dagoba. The 1.03-metre-high octagonal column has a round pedestal and its top has lotus carvings. Also discovered was a bronze vase with an inscription on the bottom saying it was made during the twenty-seventh year of the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty. We can thus conclude that the sealed chamber was opened in 1394, when repair work may have been done.
