The King Asoka tower model is a Buddhism cultural heritage characteristic of Zhejiang local worship. It proves the fact that Qian Chu, the king of Wuyue State at the end of Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, faithfully worshiped Buddhism throughout his life. The inscriptions on the tower models document that it was in AD 955 (Yimao) and AD 965 (Yichou) that Qian Chu conducted two massive manufactures of tower models particularly for storing Buddhism ashes (sarira) and Buddhism sutras. The real objects of King Asoka tower model are mainly recovered from the Buddhism towers in the territory of ancient Wuyue State. The iron King Asoka tower models recovered from the underground chambers of Buddhism towers in Dingzhou, Hebei and Dengzhou, Henan might be relevant to Qian Chu’s two visits to the capital city. Furthermore, most of the unofficially replicated King Asoka tower models, in terms of the date inscriptions on them, belong to Five Dynasties Period and Song Dynasty. All of the tower models produced in Five Dynasties and a large proportion of those produced in Song Dynasty were unearthed within the territory of Wuyue State.
