Mor Buddhist Pagoda

 In the middle of 10 century A.D., when Islamism was formally introduced into Kashgar, Buddhism staged out of the historical arena. Nowadays. The only traces left was Mor Buddhist Pagoda, which is the last witness of Buddhism of Shule state."or”, also interpreted as “Mordun”or " molatim" which means "chimney” in Uyghur, because the site of the stupa were two earth turret which was considered as beacon tower by the locals. As a matter of fact, it was a famous ancient temple site, which is located 29 kilometers northeast of Kashgar city.

The stupa has been identified as a Building of middle or late Tang dynasty. In 1957,it was designated as the autonomous level historical relics protection unit.The pagoda faces south. Now it rests on ranges of mountains, facing the wilderness, and oppositing Hannuoyi ancient city over Qiakmak river.The pottery pieces, fragment of coins, grapevine, Karez system and ancient bacon tower proved that the place was once dense-populated and bustling.

Judged from the untreated relics, its scale is very large. Apart from two pagodas, on its southeast part was the site of sitting rooms of monks. Under the slope was one-kilometer Kares System winding across the foot of the hill, from which monks got water and we can see Kares System was not the monopoly of Turpan.All the other buildings had been destroyed. From the timber under the temple, it is predicted that these buildings might well have been burnt down by fire. At present, we can only see two wrecked pagodas standing side by side.

The one on the southeast had a tray-like bottom, a column body and a cake shape dome.It was 12 meters high from the bottom to the top with five-square layers, each a little smaller than the one below it. The body of the pagoda was made from trapezia and square sun-dried earth bricks. The inside part of the pagoda is empty, and the outer part scattered some small pits for climbing. According to research, the pagoda was “Cuidubo”in Indian Buddhist architecture which were used for storing “Shelizi”(the skeleton, hair, nails, teeth etc of Sakyamuni).Shule state had a tradition of storing legacy of Buddha, so it was natural for them to built dagoba.

The one on the northwest looks like a inverted chapiter, which is wide in bottom but small at the top. The wreckage is still 7 meters high.There are niche in the front and both sides, in which statues of buddhas were placed. But now there are not a single one left,and even the niches themselves are barely visible. The pagoda should have been the central building, on the top of which were campanile which also has disappeared now.

According to the site and its shape, we can calculate that the pagoda enjoy a high position at that time, which may have been the special temple for the royals in Shule.

In 690 A.D. when Wuzetian was on the throne, in order to flatter her a group of monks in Chang'an told her that in "Dayun Sultra" there were prophesy that she would be the king, which aroused her great interests in distributing the sultra and constructing "Dayun temple ".

After the commander of Shule received the order, he spent near 10 years in building the famous Dayun Temple in the Western Regions. Because the temple was built under the order of the central government, the presbyter were Han monks sent from the central plains. Till the end of the 8th century, many monks and men of letters still highly praised it when they came across Shule. Zhongzong of Tang Dynasty(705-709), also ordered Longxing temple to be built throughout the country. The commander of Shule also built a temple near its capital, and the monks were also directed from the central plains.

It is hard to ascertain whether Mor Stupa was one of them. But it is certain that it is the last Buddhist site after the formal introduction of Islamism into Kashgar.