Foguang Temple Pagoda

Thinking through Alfred Gell’s “Art and Agency” & “The Technology of Enchantment”

Agentive Geometry in Vertical Cosmology

Gell’s anthropology of art revolves around the idea of objects as agents in social and cosmological relationships. The Foguang Pagoda functions not as a passive architectural container but as an index of Buddhist cosmology and a performative agent in the ritual life of both the community and the cosmos.

Rising nearly 70 meters, its five-story wooden structure is arranged in tiered vertical ascension—each level not merely a physical platform, but a conceptual stair to liberation (moksha). This architectural stacking enacts a spatial metaphor: from base (earth) to summit (nirvana). In Gellian terms, the pagoda is an indexical sign pointing to the possibility of spiritual transcendence. But this index is not static—it operates through ritual motion, memory, and the awe of tectonic mastery.

The Technology of Timber Enchantment

The pagoda’s spellbinding power lies in its hidden complexity. Though it appears monolithic, it is a marvel of bracketed dougong construction, wherein mortise-and-tenon joints form a lattice that flexes and breathes—engineered elegance without nails or glue.

This invisibility of structural logic is what Gell would describe as the "technological base of enchantment." To the viewer, the pagoda is not just tall—it is miraculously resilient. The structural mystery draws attention to the metaphysical nature of balance: how can something so delicate be so enduring? This aura, created by cognitive opacity, imbues the building with sacred charisma—Gell’s key condition for art as enchantment.

Art as Agency in Buddhist Ritual Ecology

Within the pagoda lies a colossal seated Buddha, surrounded by murals and wooden bodhisattvas. These figures are indexical agents as well, redirecting devotional attention back into the architectural structure that houses them. Every circumambulation, every incense offering activates the pagoda as a ritual machine—a living node in the wider network of Buddhist cosmology.

The pagoda is also an actor in Gell’s distributed agency: weathered by time, restored by emperors, visited by pilgrims, documented by scholars—it continues to generate social relationships across centuries. It is not just an object of reverence, but an active mediator between realms: human and divine, earthly and celestial.