001 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 →
002 Architecture Longxing Temple In the sixth year of the Kaihuang era of the Sui, the regional inspector of Hengzhou, acting on imperial command, exhorted and rewarded ten thousand people of the prefecture to jointly build the Longzang Temple; the 藏 in the temple's name is read “zàng,” referring in Buddhism to the Mahāyāna canon or the scripture-treasury of the dragon palace. The temple plaque was later changed to Longxing Temple (龙兴寺, “Dragon Rising”); in the Ming, Du Mu recognized from a half-buried Sui stele before the hall that the two were originally one temple. In the forty-ninth year of the Kangxi era it was again granted the plaque “Longxing Temple” (隆兴寺, written with different characters). Three closely related names, linked together by a single Sui stele that still stands within the temple. Sui Dynasty Zhengding County, Hebei Province Buddhist Architecture · Longxing Temple · Pavilion of Great Compassion →
003 Architecture Foguang Temple Foguang Temple lies in Wutai County, Shanxi, and takes its name from an auspicious response of "Buddha's light." In the fifth year of the Dali era of the Tang, the monk Facao saw several beams of white light to the temple's south; during the Yuanhe era there was a memorial reporting that "auspicious clouds appeared beside Foguang Temple." The Dunhuang Record of a Journey to Mount Wutai describes its seven-bay great Buddha hall and its three-story, seven-bay Maitreya pavilion; after the Huichang persecution the monk Yuancheng "sought out Foguang Temple anew" and rebuilt it step by step. The East Hall that survives today is a relic of that reconstruction. Tang Dynasty Wutai County, Shanxi Province Foguang Temple · Great Foguang Temple · Wutai County →
004 Architecture Hua Pagoda at Guanghui Temple, Zhengding The Hua Pagoda at Guanghui Temple stands inside the south gate of Zhengding, also called Huata Temple or Duobao Pagoda. The temple's history traces back to the Sui and Tang, while the date of the pagoda itself drifts between the Jin Dading rebuilding and the Northern Song inscriptions discovered during 1990s restoration. The Qianlong Emperor climbed the pagoda and inscribed a poem; Liang Sicheng called it 'perhaps a sole surviving example within the seas'; in 1947 Zhao Shengming gave his life to protect the pagoda in battle. Tang / Song-Jin Zhengding County, Hebei Hua Pagoda Guanghui Temple · Guanghui Temple · Huata Temple →
005 Architecture Shanhua Temple After the Song envoy Zhu Bian was detained in the Jin state, he moved into the Da Pu'en Temple and lived for fourteen years amid the rubble left by the fires at the end of the Liao dynasty, witnessing firsthand as the monk Yuanman raised funds to rebuild more than eighty bays. He recorded the experience in a stele inscription, and his own captivity thus became a testimony to the rebirth of this ancient Tang-dynasty temple. Tang Dynasty Datong, Shanxi Province Shanhua Temple · Da Pu'en Temple · Kaiyuan Temple →
006 Architecture Dule Temple Dule Temple once belonged to Jizhou; old gazetteers place it southwest of the prefectural seat. The Liao-dynasty rebuilding of its Guanyin Pavilion survives mainly through the Liu Cheng stele: in the second year of Tonghe, Master Tanzhen entered the temple to rebuild the pavilion of two stories, five bays east to west and eight frames north to south. The Jingji Jinshi Kao still records the stele; Qing gazetteers note a 1753 imperial-funded restoration, and early modern albums preserve views of the mountain gate, the Guanyin Pavilion, the guardian kings, and the Guanyin image. Liao dynasty Jizhou District, Tianjin (formerly Ji County, Hebei) Dule Temple · Dule Temple in Jizhou · Dule Temple in Ji County →
007 Architecture Huayan Temple The chronology of Huayan Temple does not begin with a single record: a construction inscription of 1038 survives on a beam of the Hall of the Bhagavat Sutra Repository, while the History of the Liao dates the temple's founding to 1062. Thereafter, wartime fires, the Jin-dynasty rebuilding, the Yuan-dynasty revival, modern photographic surveys, and twenty-first-century expansion each left layers of text and image behind. The temple today thus faces both its old Liao and Jin structures and a newly spread-out courtyard complex, linking nearly a millennium of rise and decline. Liao Dynasty Datong, Shanxi Province Huayan Temple · Datong · Liao Architecture →