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 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 →
003 Architecture Beiyue Temple Beiyue Temple lies in Quyang County, Baoding, Hebei Province, with clear records of the shrine and its steles dating to the Tang Dynasty; the surviving main hall, the Hall of Dening, is a Yuan timber structure, and the temple served successive dynasties as the state ritual site for sacrifices to the Northern Sacred Peak, Mount Heng. This entry gathers the original texts of the Tang stele of the royal enfeoffment, the reconstruction steles by Wang Yucheng and Han Qi, the Yuan edict stele conferring an additional title, and more, together with old photographs by Osvald Sirén and the Society for Research in Chinese Architecture showing the main hall, its surrounding colonnade, its bracket sets, and its Yuan dynasty murals. Tang Dynasty Quyang County, Baoding, Hebei Province Beiyue Temple · Beiyue Temple of Quyang · Beiyue Shrine →