001 Architecture Lingyan Temple In the Zhengguang era of the Northern Wei, the Chan master Fading came to Mount Fang and founded a place of Buddhist practice; in the Tang, a monastery was re-established beside the damaged images left by the Huichang suppression of Buddhism. In the Northern Song a complex of more than five hundred bays drew crowds of pilgrims, only to fall quickly into decline amid famine; in the Jin the monks defended the temple's mountain forest on the strength of old steles; in the Yuan more than five thousand volumes of scripture waited forty-five years for the Dragon Treasury Hall; in the Ming the Hall of the Thousand Buddhas was rebuilt; and in the Qing the treasury hall was destroyed by fire. Through its many cycles of rise and decline, the temple has left behind stele inscriptions, rubbings, and photographs from successive ages. Northern Wei Dynasty Changqing District, Jinan, Shandong Province Lingyan Temple · Mount Fang · Mount Yufu →
002 Architecture Yuquan Temple During the Kaihuang era of the Sui, Yang Guang, Prince of Jin, built a monastic center on Mount Yuquan in Dangyang for the Tiantai master Zhiyi. In the sixth year of the Jiayou era of the Northern Song, Hao Yan and his maternal aunt of the Han family donated iron, and craftsmen of the Two Zhe circuits cast it into a thirteen-story pagoda for the Buddha's tooth relic. After the wars at the end of the Song, the temple fell for a time into “daily deepening decay,” and under the Yuan the monk Guangzhu rebuilt its halls and pavilions. In the thirtieth year of the Wanli era, the monk Zhenghui vowed to rebuild the main hall, and the layman Ren Chengzhou joined in aiding the work; the extant main hall still retains a Yuan-dynasty lower sill and Ming-dynasty bracket sets. Sui Dynasty Dangyang, Hubei Province Yuquan Temple · Yuquan Iron Pagoda · Mount Yuquan →
003 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 →