001 Architecture Xuanmiao Temple The state Taoist system of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang gave the city of Suzhou its Kaiyuan Palace; in the Song it was retitled Tianqing Temple, and after repeated destruction by war it was rebuilt by the court. In the Yuan, a woman donated her hairpins and earrings to repair the Three Gates; in the Ming, the timber rafts for rebuilding the Miluo Treasure Pavilion were scattered by wind upon the river, yet the stele record says the drifting timbers afterward all gathered back together. The temple front also became the place where hundreds of weavers waited each day for work. In the Qing it was renamed Yuanmiao Temple and became an altar of birthday prayers for the southern tours; in 1912 the Miluo Treasure Pavilion burned down, while the Southern Song Hall of the Three Pure Ones has survived to this day. Tang Dynasty Gusu District, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province Xuanmiao Temple · Yuanmiao Temple · Tianqing Temple →
002 Architecture Fengguo Temple At the turn of the Liao and Jin, the flames of war spread through the northeast, and the Liao monasteries of the region were reduced to ash in a single blaze — only Fengguo Temple in Yizhou stood alone and intact. The stele of the seventh year of Dade traces the reason: Wang Xun, Grand Master of Splendid Happiness with Golden Seal and Purple Ribbon, ordered his men to keep constant watch, and the abbot Master Yang exhausted his resources on repairs, so the seven Buddhas within the hall and the nine-bay Great Hall passed through that war whole. Liao dynasty Yi County, Jinzhou, Liaoning Province Liao Architecture · Buddhist Temple · Great Hall →
003 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 →