Pagoda

Pagoda, a tower common in Buddhist temple enclosures in China, and also found in India, Japan, and Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). Pagodas have 1 to 13 stories—each story set off with a distinctive projecting roof—and are used as shrines, memorials, and tombs. Probably derived from rudimentary Indian prototypes, pagoda architecture developed in China before ad 500. One of the most famous was the 15th-century Porcelain Tower, a nine-story pagoda the walls of which were faced with colored tiles. Probably the largest and most spectacular surviving pagoda is the 112-m (368-ft) Shwedagon (circa 15th century) of Yangon (formerly known as Rangoon), Myanmar. Unlike Chinese pagodas, it is bell-shaped rather than vertically upright, and its exterior is entirely encrusted with gold. See Chinese Art and Architecture; Indian Art and Architecture; Japanese Art and Architecture.