001 Architecture Xuankong Temple Xuankong Temple of Hunyuan, Datong, Shanxi stands in Ciyao Gorge on Mount Heng, a complex of Buddhist temple buildings set against a cliff whose official dating reaches back to the late Northern Wei. The surviving halls and pavilions derive mainly from Ming and Qing rebuildings: niches and chambers are cut into the rock face, while timber structures and plank walkways jut out beyond the cliff. This entry gathers the Jin-dynasty Record of Xuankong Temple, with Poem, Ming and Qing travel accounts and gazetteers, the restoration story recorded in the Tongzhi third-year (1864) Stele of the Reconstruction of Xuankong Temple, and an old photograph from the 1937 Yilin Monthly: Special Travel Issue. Northern Wei Hunyuan County, Datong, Shanxi Province Xuankong Temple · Xuankong Temple of Mount Heng · Hunyuan →
002 Architecture Guangsheng Temple Today's Guangsheng Temple is split between the heights and foot of Mount Huo, yet the Tang documents record only one ancient foundation of an Aśoka pagoda. Thereafter buildings arose beside the Huo Spring, a Buddha hall stood at the southern foot of the mountain, and a glazed pagoda was rebuilt on the summit. In the thirteenth year of the Jiajing era, Wang Shilong, leading troops on a relief expedition, took his meal at the foot of the pagoda, and after the revolt was pacified had his poem carved on the pagoda wall; not until the Kangxi era did the names “Upper Temple” and “Lower Temple” appear explicitly in a stele. The extant Feihong Pagoda was built under the monk Dalian between the Zhengde and Jiajing eras. Northern Zhou Dynasty Hongtong County, Linfen, Shanxi Province Buddhist Architecture · Northern Zhou · Tang Dynasty →