Ruiguang Pagoda is located at 1 East Street (within Panmen Gate scenic area), and was listed as national key cultural relics protection site in 1988.
Ruiguang Temple was named Puji Temple at the beginning. According to the local historical records, on the fourth year of Chiwu Reign in the Three Kingdoms period (241), Sun Quan, the king of Wu, ordered the Puji Temple constructed for a monk, Xing Kang, who went to Suzhou from the state of Kangju in Western Regions. On the tenth year, in order to express his gratitude to his mother, Sun Quan built a thirteen-storey sarira pagoda inside the temple. And according to the cultural relics found in the tower, and the layout, the structure, and the appearance of the tower, this tower was built during the first year of Reign of Jingde Emperor (1004) to the eighth year of the Reign of Jingde Emperor (in 1030) in northern song dynasty. This Buddhist temple was called the Ruiguang Temple or Auspicious Light Temple at that time.
Ruiguang Temple Pagoda is customarily called Ruiguang Pagoda, and is an octagonal and seven-storey building of both brick and wood. The brick pagoda is composed of external wall, corridor and pedestal. Through dougong, a system of brackets unique in traditional Chinese architecture, wooden eaves, and balconies made of wood are projecting out of the external wall. The brick body of the pagoda is basically the original construction of Song Dynasty. Although the sixth and seventh storey and the wooden steeple were reconstructed afterwards, the pillar group framework structure is rarely seen in other ancient pagodas. Ruiguan Pagoda is a fine representation of the pavilion type wood and stone pagoda, modeled after the wood structures, in the southern China during Song Dynasty.
Since the eleventh year of the Reign of Tongzhi Emperor of Qing Dynasty, the pagoda was in a state of disrepair for more than 100 years and went from bad to worse. To avoid its collapse, people reinforced the Commentary door and the brickwork of the Buddhist niche at the bottom part in 1954 and closed it for a long time. In 1963, a survey and investigation was executed toward the entire pagoda when statues of Buddhist images and a pillar inscribed with Buddha's name and scriptures were found. In April 1978 many cultural relics were found in a brick recess dating back to Late Tang, Five Dynasties and Northern Song Dynasties are found in a brick recess inside the third storey of the pagoda, including genuine pearl sarira stupas. Started in 1987 a comprehensive repair and reinforcement, which lasted more than three years till 1990 and at a cost of 1.27 million Chinese Yuan, brought the pagoda back to a Tower of distinctive Song Dynasty Style.