001 Architecture Kaiyuan Temple, Quanzhou Huang Shougong made it a condition that he would give up his estate only when the mulberry trees bore lotus blossoms; days later, white lotuses covered the trees. Two centuries later, the Buddha hall, the sutra library, and the bell tower burned down in a single night. Thereafter Kaiyuan Temple was rebuilt again and again: wooden pagodas gave way to brick, and brick to stone, until a knife-bearing “Monkey Pilgrim” was carved onto the Renshou Pagoda—some three hundred years before the hundred-chapter Journey to the West. Later still, famine crowds filled the long galleries, and Ming-dynasty visitors circled the twin pagodas beneath the moon. Tang dynasty Licheng District, Quanzhou, Fujian Province Kaiyuan Temple, Quanzhou · Lotus Flower Temple · Longxing Temple →
002 Architecture Xingjiao Temple Pagodas The Xingjiao Temple Pagodas stand within Xingjiao Temple on the Shaoling Plateau in Xi'an. They are the collective designation for the three relic-burial pagodas of Xuanzang, Kuiji, and Woncheuk. The Xuanzang Pagoda occupies the center and is somewhat larger, erected when the temple was founded in the 2nd year of Zongzhang (669 CE); the Kuiji and Woncheuk pagodas flank it on either side and are somewhat smaller. The pagoda inscriptions of Xuanzang and Kuiji are Tang originals carved in the 4th year of Kaicheng; the Woncheuk inscription stone was broken and what is now embedded on the pagoda is a later re-carving. Tang Dynasty Chang'an District, Xi'an, Shaanxi Xingjiao Temple Pagodas · Xuanzang · Kuiji →