001 Architecture Yunju Temple, Fangshan Yunju Temple stands at the foot of Shijing Mountain in Fangshan, Beijing. In the Daye era of the Sui dynasty, the monk Jingwan carved Buddhist scriptures onto stone to preserve them against Dharma decline. Over the following millennium, Tang Princess Jinxian donated sutras and land, and the Liao court funded four major scriptural canons — altogether 1,122 texts on 14,278 stone slabs. After Japanese artillery destroyed all halls in 1942, the stone scriptures in caves and underground vaults survived intact. Sui dynasty Fangshan District, Beijing Buddhist Architecture · Stone Carving · Pagoda →
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 →