The Temple Guy

Dear Friends,
Since December of last year I have made daily posts--I don't think I ever missed one. I'm tired, so I'll be slowing down in September, with occasional posts here and there. Thanks for your support!
If you want to see what else I'm doing, check out my Temple Tales Newsletter (in bio).

Here's a brief account of my short visit. I LOVED the Muslim Quarter! chinaskeytemples.thetempleguy.org/2010/04/no-1...

Click "Previous Article" (not Previous at the bottom) to see what else I did in Shandong. (The piece was originally written for a Shenzhen newspaper.)

Two Buddhas, seen in the grottoes at Xingguo Temple on Qianfo Shan ("Thousand-Buddha Mountain") in Ji'nan, Shandong. The temple is located about halfway up the hillside. Aside from several halls with some fine statues, there are numerous small grottoes with statues carved into the native rock.

Main Hall, Qingyun Temple, Zhaoqing, Guangdong--mostly unrestored and therefore beautiful. Founded in 1633, the temple is now inside the lush Dinghu Mountain National Nature Reserve, China's first (est. 1956), which is bisected by the Tropic of Cancer. The stroll down the mountain is delightful.

This stone lion looked amazing in golden hour light at Jingju Temple, Ji'an, Jiangxi. The temple was the seat of Qingyuan Xingsi (660-740), a claimant to be the Seventh Patriarch of Chan (Zen). Three of Chan's five recognized schools can be traced through him: the Caodong, Yunmen, and Fayan Schools.

This dragon is on the Nine Dragon Wall in Datong, Shanxi, built to screen a prince's palace in 1392. The palace, alas, is long gone, but the wall remains, and at 45.5 meters (150 ft) long and eight meters (26 ft) high, it is advertised as China's oldest and largest screen wall made of glazed tile.

The Bronze Hall is near the rear of Xiantong Temple, Wutai Shan, Shanxi. Its inside is lined with small bronze figures of Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. Built in the Ming Dynasty, it is one of only three bronze temple halls in all of China. The pagodas that stand before it are bronze as well.

The gateway to Bukenqu Guanyin Yuan on Putuoshan in Zhejiang. The temple's founding story tells of a Japanese monk who tried to take a statue of Guanyin back to Japan; the statue would not leave, giving the temple its name: Bukenqu, the "refused to leave" Guanyin.

It's time again for the monthly FREE post on my "Temple Tales" Newsletter. This one addresses the problem of sacred statues that are no longer wanted--"Discarded Deities."
Enjoy!
templetales.substack.com/p/ep-160-dis...

The pagoda at Longhua Temple in Shanghai stands outside the front gate, and is its most famous feature. It is the only ancient pagoda remaining in the city; while the foundations may be older, and there have been extensive repairs, the core of the current structure dates to 977.

The pond in the background once was home to two ancient turtles in the West Garden of Xiyuan Jiechuang Temple in Suzhou, Jiangsu. An unsourced statement on Wikipedia says, "One turtle died in 2007 at the age of 400, and the other has disappeared." All we have left is this statue.

The Buddha and Arhats in the grottoes behind Qixia Temple in Nanjing, Jiangsu. You can clearly see that the heads--replaced after vandalism--are a different color. The area is the so-called "Thousand Buddhas Cliff" (started in 484), which has grottoes actually containing 515 statues and 294 shrines.

The "True Relic Pagoda" at Famen Temple in Xi'an, Shaanxi, collapsed in 1981; relics, including a finger bone of the Buddha, were found in a vault underneath it in 1987. The relic is now on display in a modern (and, IMO, "ugly") structure nearby. The reconstructed pagoda here was completed in 1988.

The pool is the centerpiece at Guanyin Temple, Shenzhen, Guangdong. New halls were going up around it when I visited in 2011. It's located not far from one of Shenzhen's best folk temples, Fenghuang Shan, or "Phoenix Mountain" in Fuyong Town, which is in turn quite near Shenzhen Airport.

The streetside gate at lovely Tongjiao Temple in Beijing, the city's only nunnery. A place of strict discipline, it is open to the public only on new moon and full moon. The ultra-urban location was used as a police station during the Cultural Revolution, but was restored and re-opened in 1981.

Dhrtarashtra, one of the Four Heavenly Kings, in the then-newly-built Huayan Temple in Guangzhou, Guangdong. The Chinese call him Chi Guo for "supporting the country." His lute can bring comfort and represent harmony, but also its TWANG! can raise a wind, fanning fires which destroy the enemy camp.

The Mountain Gate at Guangyuan Temple, Chengde, Hebei, is closed with adobe. The abandoned temple's grounds are used as a plant nursery. Built by the lama in charge of nearby Puning Temple in 1780 under Emperor Qianlong, it was one of the "Eight Outer Temples" of Chengde. Few of its halls remain.

The "Soul Cow" at Zhiti Huayan Temple in Ningde, Fujian. It's said that the cow went down on its knees whenever anyone said "Namo Amitofo" (the name of Amitabha Buddha) to it. It had been saved from butchering and brought to the temple for refuge--and this was as recent as the 1980s!

The White Horse at Baima Temple in Luoyang, Henan, represents one of those who gave the temple its name: "Baima" is Chinese for "White Horse." It is said that this was the lodging for the first two official missionaries from India (who rode white horses); it would thus be China's oldest temple.

This Spirit Door at Longshan Temple, Jinjiang, Fujian, shows the current building's originally-Daoist design. Now converting to a more Buddhist style, Longshan has a long history of Buddhism, having fostered many by the same name throughout the world--no fewer than five across the straits in Taiwan.

These small Buddhas are waiting to be placed in a repainted 10,000 Buddha Hall at Tiantai Temple on Jiuhuashan, Anhui. The highest temple (though not the highest peak) on Jiuhua, Tiantaisi is said to be where the Korean monk Jin Qiaojue built his hut when he came up the mountain to practice in 719.

I had started my morning by climbing up to Roushen Dian on Jiuhuashan, Anhui. On the opposite descent, I stopped in at Shangchantang Temple. When I reached the courtyard of tiny Jingjie Jingshi, it was fairly crowded--a sign I was nearing the main road at bottom of the trail.

Erzu (Second Patriarch's) Temple in Yuexi County, Anhui, is one of the most remote I've been to. It sits at the foot of Sikong Mountain. The mountain is called "Sikong Yuan" as it was the retreat of an official named Chunyu Dasikong, from the time of Confucius--testimony to how remote it is.

Gate to the Dragon Spring at the quaint Longquan (Dragon Spring) An Nunnery in Badachu Park, Beijing. The temple dates to the 1420s, and the nuns sell simple snacks in an outdoor dining area above the titular Dragon Spring. There is also a fine collection of very old statues in a dilapidated hall.

The Thousand-Armed Guanyin at Kaifu Temple, Changsha, Hunan. A general named Ma Yin (852-930) became "King of Chu" and built his palace here. His son, Ma Xifan, donated the land in 927 to a monk named Baoning, who built the first temple. It has been destroyed and rebuilt many times since.

In a clever use of limited space, Jinge Temple, Wutai Shan, Shanxi, arranged its 500 Arhats in the rafters over the floor of the main hall. Impressive--and a little creepy. The temple is associated with the Indian Vajrayana master Amoghavajra, and was built to promote devotion to Manjushri.

The 250-foot (75.3 m) stupa (properly called the "Great White Pagoda") at Tayuan Temple is the symbol of Wutai Shan, Shanxi. Built in 1302, it originally belonged to nearby Xiantong Temple. In 1407 it was separated and became a temple in its own right, named simply Tayuan, the "Pagoda Compound."

The entry to Huiji Temple, Putuoshan Zhejiang, seems almost defensive: a long narrow corridor with right-angle turns as though to repel an invading army. It approaches the temple's front gate through a forested area, from the top of the famed Xiangyun (Fragrant Cloud) Road, the traditional approach.

The buildings at Yuanming Jiangtang in Shanghai look like office buildings, but some fine statues inside include this Jade Buddha. It was founded in 1934 as a study center by Master Yuanying of Ningbo's Tiantong Temple. Yuanying was also the first chairman of the Chinese Buddhism Association.

A rakshasa or demon is crushed under the foot of Virudhaka in the Heavenly Kings' Hall at Wenshu Yuan in Chengdu, Sichuan. These figures represent the "crushing" of unhelpful desires. They also sometimes serve to hold up the unsupported leg of a statue.