Kumarajiva Pagoda in Wuwei County of Gansu Province
The pagoda, located on North Street of the county town of Wuwei, is said to have been built for keeping the bones of Kumarajiva, an eminent monk in the Later Qin Dynasty. A temple, also called Kumarajiva, was destroyed in an earthquake in 1927. Half the pagoda was also destroyed during the earthquake, but the pagoda was rebuilt in 1934. The hollow, octagonal, twelve-storey, brick pagoda is thirty-two meters high. The first, third, fifth and eighth storeys have a door on the east side, and the twelfth storey has a small niche housing a Buddhist statue. The pent roofs do not correspond to the floors inside and they are very narrow. Their four corners bend upward, and bells hang from them. The steeple is an inverted bowl topped by a canopy and a copper vase. The whole pagoda looks imposing and elegant and is a famous historical site in Wuwei.
