Tsui Sing Lau Pagoda

The Tsui Sing Lau Pagoda (Chinese: 聚星樓; Jyutping: zeoi6 sing1 lau4; lit.: 'The Pagoda of Gathering Stars') is the only surviving ancient pagoda in Hong Kong. It is part of the Ping Shan Heritage Trail and a declared monument.[1][2]

Tsui Sing Lau Pagoda
聚星樓
Tsui Sing Lau Pagoda
Alternative names魁星塔, 文昌閣, (local)文塔
General information
TypePagoda
LocationPing Shan, Yuen Long, New Territories, Hong Kong
Coordinates22.448767°N 114.006151°E / 22.448767; 114.006151
Completed1486
OwnerTang clan
Height13 metres
Technical details
Floor count3 (formerly 7)
Website
Designated14 December 2001
Reference no.75

History

According to Tang Clan legend, Tsui Sing Lau was originally located at the mouth of Deep Bay. It was built at least 600 years ago, by the seventh-generation ancestor, Tang Yin-tung, to avoid evil spirits from the north, prevent floods and help the Tangs win a title in the imperial examination. Numerous Tangs have been granted titles.[2] It was declared a monument on 14 December 2001.[1]

A further Tang legend relates how in 1382, Tang Yin-tung dreamed that a group of stars all gathered together and dropped onto the place where the pagoda now stands. Tang was reminded of the words of a fung shui master who had complimented the good fung shui of Ping Shan, but who also gave two comments on its geographical weaknesses. The Tangs had not fully comprehended the second comment, so Tang Yin-tung immediately consulted a Fung Shui master. The master advised him to build a Buddhist pagoda on that spot in order to gather the 'scholarship' for the clan, hence the name. After the building of the pagoda, the Tang clan produced numerous scholars and officials in the Ming and Qing dynasties.[2]

Built on a low foundation, the hexagonal pagoda is believed to have had an initial total of seven floors, but this was reduced to three due to erosion. It is made of mud bricks and granite.[2] Fui Shing is worshipped on the top floor, where the words Over the Milky Way was inscribed. Fui Shing was a god who determined which scholars were to pass examinations and receive titles. The words The Pagoda of Gathering Stars and Light Shines Straight Onto the Dippers and the Enclosures were inscribed on the second and ground floors respectively.[1]

gollark: I'm sure Google has lots of spare GPU/TPU power. They have some ridiculous GPT-3-scale image/text model in development now, and use BERT-like entities for search parsing.
gollark: I'd think that it would be possible to detect it if you had a lot of samples of it versus real human text. And there was this demo highlighting differences between human and GPTous text, via highlighting low-probability-from-the-model words (which are often also the most important).
gollark: I wonder if Google/search engines generally can detect GPT-3ous content yet.
gollark: That sounds hard, actually.
gollark: What if we generate VAST quantities of novel and interesting content?

See also

References
  1. "Ping Shan Heritage Trail - Tsui Sing Lau Pagoda". Hong Kong: Hong Kong Leisure and Cultural Department, Antiquities and Monuments Office. Retrieved 31 January 2010.
  2. 香港屏山文物徑的簡介 (PDF) (in Chinese). Hong Kong: Ebenezer School. pp. 2, 4–5. Retrieved 31 January 2010.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.