The Manfeilong Pagoda is located on
top of the mountain in Manfeilong Village in Jinhong County of Yunnan Province.
The pagoda is a famous stupa group in Xishuanbanna. The white stupa looks like a
white bottle gourd while the minarets look like bamboo shoots, hence the name
"Bamboo Shoot Tower". Due to the white stupa, some people also called it the
White Pagoda.
Crossing a river along Manfeilong Village,
you'll come across more than 200 stone steps, which have a boundless virgin
forest on the left side and an exuberant hurst of rubber plants on the right
side. The pagoda, on a mountaintop, actually consists of 9 stupas, with the
primary stupa in the center while the other 8 smaller stupas clustering to its
base. The primary pagoda measures 16.29 meters and the 8 pagodas on the sides
look like a group of children nestling around the mother. In each stupa, there
is a niche featuring a Buddhist statue and a Buddhist relief, and on top of the
niche is a flying phoenix. At the gate of each stupa are two giant dragons
engraved out of earth. Bells hung on the stupas give wonderful tinkles in the
breezes.
Below one of the stupas and in a niche the
Buddha's footprint is enshrined. Legend has it that the 80 cm long and 58 cm
wide footprint was left by Sakyamuni, the founder of the Buddhist religion,
during his visit in the area.
Records in a sutra show that Manfeilong
Pagoda was first built in 1204 (565 in the Dai calendar). It was designed by
three monks from India and the design was executed under the sponsorship of the
chieftain of Menglong tribe. After two renovates in modern times, the pagoda was
listed as a national key cultural relic preservation site.