The Tianning Monastery is a Buddhist monastery complex located in Xicheng district, Beijing.
Although historical records usually date the Tianning Monastery to the Northern Wei period,
the contemporary scholar Wang Shiren writes that the monastery was first built in the Tang dynasty
under the name Tianwangsi (天王寺) and was dedicated to Vaisravana (1996, 9). The octagonal pagoda still
extant today was constructed during the Tianqing reign of the Liao dynasty in 1120 (Wang and Wang 2011, 80).
Later records show that the monastery was destroyed at the end of the Liao dynasty and rebuilt by Emperor
Yongle (r. 1402 - 1424) of the Ming dynasty while he was the Prince of Yan. The monastery was
renamed Tianningsi in the tenth year of the Xuande reign (1435) of the Ming dynasty.
The buildings standing today date to another reconstruction in the twenty-first year of Qianlong (1756) of
Qing with additional renovations from 1938 (Wang 1996, 12).