Baoshi Mountain
Red volcanic hillside topped by a solid brick pagoda, rebuilt through public alms and fundraising.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Baoshi Mountain in Hangzhou traces the story behind the brick pagoda on its summit, starting around the year 1000 with a monk named Yongbao who vowed to fix the crumbling tower if his failing eyes were cured, then spent a decade begging coin by coin to fund it. It follows the tower through fire and collapse across the centuries, including an earlier version raised to pray for a king, and into 1933, when Hangzhou's mayor ran his own version of Yongbao's fundraising campaign among ordinary citizens. Notice the pagoda has no door and no staircase in any version.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
保俶塔
Slender brick pagoda on a hilltop, rebuilt six times and now a solid shell with no interior stairs.
Leifeng Pagoda
Rebuilt lakeside pagoda standing over the ruins of a tower villagers dismantled brick by brick.
闸口白塔
Nine-tiered octagonal stone pagoda carved with waves, warriors and bodhisattvas, dating to the Wuyue kingdom.
六和塔
Octagonal riverside pagoda whose thirteen visible stories hide only seven inside, its brick base carved with over two hundred Song-era reliefs.
Three Pools Mirroring the Moon
Hollow stone pagodas in a lake, lit each autumn to scatter candlelit moons across the water.
Lingyin Temple
Ancient Buddhist monastery beneath cliffs of Buddhist grotto carvings, among China's wealthiest temples.