Leifeng Pagoda

Stand still for a moment and listen. Below you, the water of West Lake moves softly against the shore. Somewhere nearby a tour guide's microphone crackles, and a breeze comes up the slope through the camphor trees. Above you rises a tall, eight-sided tower, gold and red against the sky. Its eaves turn up at the corners like the edges of a folded leaf. This is Leifeng Pagoda, and the ground under your feet has held a pagoda, or the ruins of one, for more than a thousand years.

The tower stands on a low rise called Sunset Hill, on the southern shore of the lake. The name matters. For centuries, people in Hangzhou came here at the end of the day to watch the evening light fall across the tower. That view became one of the Ten Scenes of West Lake, a classical list of the lake's most admired views. Its title is usually translated as Leifeng Pagoda in the Evening Glow. So if you are here near dusk... you are doing exactly what visitors have done for generations.

The first pagoda on this hill went up in the late tenth century. At that time, Hangzhou was the capital of a small kingdom called Wuyue, which ruled this coastal region before China was reunited under the Song dynasty. Its last king, Qian Chu, was a devout Buddhist. He ordered the pagoda built, and historical accounts link it to a royal consort and to the birth of a son. For a time, people even called it the Consort Huang Pagoda.

That original tower was built of brick, with wooden balconies and eaves wrapped around it. Then, in the Ming dynasty, during the sixteenth century, pirate raids reached this coast. The raiders set fire to the pagoda. The wooden parts burned away completely. What remained was a bare brick core — a dark, weathered stump of a tower. And for about four hundred years, that is how people knew it.

Here is the first surprise. Many people found the ruined tower more beautiful than any complete one. Painters and poets loved its broken shape against the sunset. An old local saying compared the two pagodas of West Lake to two people. The slender Baochu Pagoda, on the hill across the water to the north, was like a graceful young woman. The heavy, scarred Leifeng Pagoda was like an old monk. If the air is clear, look north across the lake and you may see Baochu's thin spire on the far ridge.

Now the story of how the old monk fell. Over the centuries, a belief spread among local people that bricks from the pagoda could protect a household or cure illness. Visitors scraped at the base and carried pieces away. Brick by brick, the foundation grew weaker. In September 1924, the old tower finally collapsed into a heap of rubble. The writer Lu Xun, one of the most important voices in modern Chinese literature, soon published an essay about its fall.

The collapse revealed something nobody expected. Inside some of the bricks, there were small hollow chambers. And inside those chambers were rolled-up Buddhist scrolls, printed with the text of a sutra — a sacred Buddhist teaching. The builders of the tenth century had sealed prayers into the very structure of the tower. These printed scrolls are now valued as early examples of printing in this region. So the pagoda was not only a building... it was a kind of library hidden in its own walls.

For most of the twentieth century, the hill held only ruins. Then, around the turn of the millennium, the city decided to rebuild. Before construction, archaeologists excavated the site carefully. Beneath the old foundation they opened an underground chamber, sometimes called the underground palace. It held Buddhist relics and offerings placed there by the Wuyue court. Among the finds was an ornate silver reliquary, a small sacred container made to hold a relic of the Buddha.

The new pagoda opened in the early 2000s. It follows the outline of the old Song-era style, but it is built with a modern frame and finished in bright colours. It even has escalators and a lift — a detail that surprises many visitors. And here is the part to look for: the new tower stands over the old one. When you go inside, look down. Behind protective glass, you can see the remains of the original brick foundation, preserved right where they stood.

Of course, most people in China know this pagoda for another reason entirely. It sits at the heart of the Legend of the White Snake, one of the best-loved folk tales in the country. According to the story, a white snake spirit took the form of a beautiful woman named Bai Suzhen. She fell in love with a young man named Xu Xian, whom she met by West Lake. A stern monk named Fahai believed their marriage was against the order of the world.

In the tale, Fahai defeats Lady White and imprisons her beneath Leifeng Pagoda. Some versions say she will stay there until the pagoda falls, or until the lake runs dry. Of course, this is folklore, not history. But it explains why so many people felt a strange mix of feelings when the real tower collapsed in 1924. Some joked that Lady White was finally free. Inside the new pagoda, you will find carved panels that tell her story scene by scene.

Take your time on the upper levels. From the open galleries, the whole lake spreads out below. You can follow the long causeways that cross the water, lined with willows. Small boats move slowly between the islands. On a misty day, the hills on the far side fade into soft layers of grey, like ink washes in a traditional painting. On a clear evening, the low sun turns the water copper and gold.

Walk around all eight sides of the gallery before you leave. Each side frames a different view. To one side you see the green hills of the south, and to another the towers of modern Hangzhou rising behind the old shoreline. It is a good place to notice how the city has grown around the lake, while the lake itself has stayed calm at its centre.

When you come back down, pause once more at the foot of Sunset Hill. Look up at the tower, then out at the water. A king built the first pagoda here. Pirates burned it. Ordinary people carried it away, one brick at a time, and a legend kept it alive. Now a new tower stands over the old stones. As you walk away along the shore, turn around once... and see how it sits against the sky.