Ministers › Statesman / Official
Cao Tiandu
Northern Wei palace attendant who dedicated a nine-storey thousand-Buddha stone pagoda at Pingcheng in 466
In the courtyard of a district government hall, a line of petitioners waits before a raised bench with a long table and document boxes; a blue umbrella stands beside it, a large drum stands at the gate where a few people wait, and a lake with sailboats lies beyond.
Also known as Neixiao Cao Tiandu (palace attendant)
- Roles
- Statesman / Official
Cao Tiandu was a neixiao, a junior attendant in the inner palace of the Northern Wei at Pingcheng, and he is known only from the dedication on the pagoda he commissioned. In 466 he had a nine-storey stone pagoda carved with a thousand Buddhas at Pingcheng, today's Datong, in memory of his late father and his late son Xuanming. The pagoda imitates a timber tower, and the back of its base carries a vow of 126 characters in nineteen lines, now badly worn. It was long kept at Chongfu Temple in Shuozhou; during the war with Japan the body and base were taken away and are now in the National Museum of History in Taipei, while the finial remains in the Mayi Museum in Shuozhou. Shi Shuqing published the pagoda and its inscription in the journal Wenwu in 1980.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; dedicated a stone pagoda at Pingcheng in 466