陜西發現佛教供奉塔、造像塔和畫像磚塔述要=A Summarization of the Buddhist Sacrificial Pagodas, Stone Carving Pagodas and Brick Pagodas with Impressed Images Found in Shaanxi
The original meaning of pagoda in Sanskrit(stupa) is tomb or barrow; when it was absorbed by the Chinese architectural system, it became the specific location for worshipping and sacrificing the Buddha. To express the piousness and faith to the Buddha, the Buddhist followers built and made pagodas of various materials and types, which could be classified generally into two categories: the unmovable pagodas built in the open air and small portable pagodas set indoors or carved on the walls. To date, most of the researches on the pagodas are focused on the former but rarely mention the latter. This paper defined the latter as "the indoor series of Buddhist sacrificial pagodas, stone carving pagodas and brick pagodas with impressed images" and chose some typical ones from the available data to analyze in chronological sequence in order to fill the gap of the researches on this issue.
