001 Architecture Xiantong Monastery Xiantong Monastery is located in Taihuai Town, Wutai County, Xinzhou, Shanxi Province. In the time of Wu Zetian of Tang, Dafu Lingjiu Monastery was renamed Great Huayan Monastery. The Tang Huayan monk Chengguan lectured at the monastery and wrote a new commentary on the Huayan Sutra. The Northern Song court included Huayan Monastery among the ten monasteries of the Five Terraces to be rebuilt; in the Ming Yongle era the Buddhist registry of Mount Wutai was established at the monastery, and the monastery and its Buddha śarīra stupa were rebuilt. In the thirty-third and thirty-fourth years of Wanli (1605–1606), the Ming monk Miaofeng Fudeng installed the copper hall and completed the brick “Seven Sites and Nine Assemblies” hall, leaving the copper hall and the beamless hall as the monastery’s core Ming-dynasty remains. Tang dynasty Wutai County, Xinzhou, Shanxi Province Xiantong Monastery · Great Xiantong Monastery · Dafu Lingjiu Monastery →
002 Architecture Taihe Palace Taihe Palace stands on Mingfeng Mountain in Kunming, Yunnan. Founded in the Wanli era of the Ming, it is centered on a gilded hall cast of copper. The original copper hall was moved to Mount Jizu in the Chongzhen era, and Wu Sangui, the Prince Who Pacified the West, recast the copper hall on Mingfeng Mountain in the Kangxi era; in the late Qing the complex passed through wartime destruction, fundraising, and continual rebuilding, and old photographs from 1911 onward preserve the former appearance of the Golden Hall with its steps and balustrades. Ming Dynasty Kunming, Yunnan Province Golden Hall of Taihe Palace · Taihe Palace · Golden Hall →