The West Iron Pagoda was cast in 963 in the Five Dynasties and is the only iron pagoda that can be proved to be the oldest in the country. It is square and used to have seven storeys. In the last year of the Qing Dynasty some houses in the temple collapsed and destroyed four storeys. Thus only three storeys remain.
Carved all over the pagoda's body are images of Buddha. In the middle of every side is a big niche for the statue of seated Buddha. The surbase is surrounded by huge lotus petal designs and supported by a two-tier Sumeru pedestal. They are all made of iron. The eaves and pedestal are engraved with superb images of flying apsarases, celestial guards and other designs.
The square, seven-storey East Iron Pagoda, made in 967 in the Five Dynasties, is 7.69 meters high, its stone Sumeru pedestal 1.34 meters high and its iron body 6.35 meters high. The steeple has been destroyed. The pagoda's more than nine hundred niches for Buddhist statues all show excellent workmanship. The Sumeru pedestal has a lotus-petal-shaped base and is engraved with vivid designs. When it was first cast, the pagoda was gilded and called the Gilded One Thousand Buddhas Pagoda. Now the gilding has peeled off, revealing the features of the iron body.
