Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple

Three Tang-era pagodas (824–840 CE) in the Dali plain, with the Cangshan Mountains behind and Erhai Lake in front. The classic Dali photograph.

The Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple stand on the plain north of Dali Old Town, framed by the 4,000-metre Cangshan Mountains to the west and Erhai Lake to the east. They are the architectural legacy of the Nanzhao Kingdom — the ethnically Bai-and-Yi state that controlled most of present-day Yunnan from the 8th to 9th centuries CE as a largely autonomous kingdom under Tang-dynasty nominal suzerainty. The Nanzhao period left remarkably little above-ground architecture; the Three Pagodas are among the most significant surviving remnants of the kingdom's material culture.

The central and tallest pagoda, Qianxun Ta, was built between 824 and 840 CE. It is 69.13 metres tall, with 16 storeys in a hollow square plan — a structure influenced by Tang-dynasty Buddhist architecture from central China, adapted to the Nanzhao context. It is one of the tallest Tang-era pagodas still standing in China. The two flanking pagodas, each approximately 42 metres tall, were added in the 10th century during the succeeding Dali Kingdom. The three form a symmetric composition when viewed from the southern approach — the reflection pool in front of the restored Chongsheng Temple complex adds the mirror image that makes the most-reproduced photograph of the site.

Chongsheng Temple, the monastery complex behind the pagodas, was rebuilt after destruction during the Qing dynasty and again after the 1950s. The current temple buildings are primarily 20th-century reconstruction and are less significant architecturally than the Tang pagodas. The site is worth seeing from the reflection pool viewpoint — the combined pagoda-mountain composition is one of Yunnan's classic landscape images — but the complex itself rewards about 90 minutes rather than a full day.