Incense burner in White Dagoba.

The Temple of the White Dagoba, standing just over 50 meters (164ft) high, is the largest Dagoba from the Yuan dynasty (1280-1368AD) still in existence. The temple was completed in under the supervision of a Nepalese architect and it was considered an aesthetic masterpiece.

Kublai Khan later established a Lama temple in front of the Dagoba but it was destroyed, then rebuilt and renamed as the Miaoying temple during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644AD). The temple was also used as a factory during the Cultural Revolution and suffered from an earthquake in 1976, but was restored in the 1980s.

The four existing halls contain Buddhist sculptures from the Yuan and Ming dynasties and Tibetan tankas. During the restoration, Buddhist scriptures and other relics dating from emperor Qianlong’s reign were discovered.

The white Dagoba was build by Kublai Khan as a religious Buddhist place.