Great White Pagoda (Tayuan Temple)

The 56-metre brick stupa that is the visual emblem of Wutaishan

The Great White Pagoda — formally the Sarira Stupa of Tayuan Temple — is the visual centre of Mt. Wutai. At 56 metres it is the tallest building in the monastic valley, and its onion-shaped white form is visible from every direction. The current brick structure was built in 1577, replacing an earlier Yuan-period stupa, but the relic deposit at its base goes back further still.

Visitors circumambulate the stupa in a clockwise direction, sometimes turning the prayer wheels set into the surrounding wall. The temple compound behind it, Tayuan Temple, contains an attractive scripture hall with a tall revolving sutra cabinet — a piece of Buddhist library architecture that was once common across the Buddhist world and is now rare. From the pagoda's base it is a five-minute walk down to the centre of Taihuai village or up to Xiantong Temple immediately behind.

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The stupa is said to enshrine relics of the Buddha. The present brick structure dates from 1577, but the underlying reliquary is much older — a Sui-dynasty inscription found during early twentieth-century repairs places at least some of the deposit in the late sixth or early seventh century. The mast at the summit carries 252 small bells, audible from across the valley on a still day.