On June 21, today's plan is to visit Mianshan.
Jiexiu's "Jie" refers to Jie Zitui, and Jie Xiu's "Xiu" refers to Jie Zitui's seclusion and eternal rest, and the place where Jie Zitui lives in seclusion and eternal rest is Mianshan.
During the Spring and Autumn Period, Duke Xian of Jin, the king of the Jin Kingdom, favored his concubine Li Ji. Lord Xian listened to the concubine's bedside slander, and wanted to abolish the previously designated heir to the throne—Prince Shen Sheng, and re-establish Xi Qi, born of Li Ji, as the crown prince.
The struggle to establish a prince has always been a life-and-death struggle. After the favorite concubine gained the upper hand, Shen Sheng was persecuted to death, and his half-brother Chong Er fled in a hurry. There were only five followers, including Jie Zitui.
Jie Zitui fled with Chong'er for nineteen years. Once, Chong Er was so hungry that he almost passed out. Jie Zitui cut off a piece of meat from his own leg, and cooked a bowl of soup with wild vegetables for Chong'er to drink, and then overcame the difficulty. Chong Er later learned about Jie Zitui's deeds of "cutting stocks to satisfy hunger", he was deeply moved, and determined to repay him well in the future.
After all the hardships, Chong'er returned to Jin and became the king. He was the "Jin Wengong" who later became one of the five tyrants in the Spring and Autumn Period.
Jie Zitui knows the truth that a companion is like a tiger. The emperor can share adversity, but not necessarily wealth. So Jie Zitui and his mother lived in seclusion in Mianshan, hoping to spend their old age in peace. Duke Wen of Jin tried to appease him many times, but he refused to listen. Jin Wengong finally came up with a trick: he ordered the mountain to be set on fire. I thought, it's time for Jie Zitui to show up now!
Who knew that forest fires could be controlled by humans and burn just right? In the end, it was found that Jie Zitui and his old mother hugged each other tightly and were burned to death together in the forest. Duke Wen of Jin did something bad with good intentions, and he was deeply saddened. Ordered to bury Jie Zitui in Mianshan, and changed Dingyang County to Jiexiu, a name that has been used until now.
Jin Wengong also designated this day (the day before Qingming) as the "Cold Food" festival, stipulating that every household should not cook on this day, and only eat cold meals. People today only know that there is a Dragon Boat Festival to commemorate Qu Yuan, but not that there is cold food to commemorate Jie Zitui. In fact, in ancient times, cold food was a big festival. The so-called "cold food every day, Lantern Festival every night" shows that cold food is comparable to Lantern Festival!
Mianshan had Taoist activities as early as the Spring and Autumn Period. In the "Biography of the Immortals" written by Liu Xiang in the Western Han Dynasty, Jie Zitui has been regarded as a Taoist god. Li Daoyuan of the Northern Wei Dynasty recorded in "Shui Jing Zhu": Shitong water, that is, Mian water, came out of Mianshan in Jiexiu County and flowed through the west of Shitong Temple. Shitong Temple is the temple of Jie Zitui.
Later generations often went to Mianshan to search for seclusion and explore the ancient times, and to pay tribute to the sages, and the activities of Taoism in Mianshan became more and more prosperous. During the Northern Wei Dynasty, there were temple buildings on the mountain, and in the early Tang Dynasty, there was already a large-scale Buddhist Zen forest. With the passage of time, most of the temples on Mianshan have declined. There are only some ancient steles left on the mountain, recording the glory that Mianshan once had.
Since 1995, Jiexiu entrepreneur Mr. Yan Jiying raised huge funds to start the construction of Mianshan Scenic Area. The temples and Taoist temples we see now are all newly built antique buildings at that time. At that time, I had not yet retired, and I had been to Mianshan once. It's a pity that there were no digital cameras at that time, and only a dozen or so film photos were taken.
Mianshan has a great reputation, and my brothers and sisters all want to see it, which is the main reason why we choose Jiexiu for tourism.
We chartered a commercial vehicle and traveled from Jiexiu to the Visitor Center of Mianshan Scenic Area. Then take the transportation vehicle of Mianshan to various scenic spots in Mianshan.
There are many scenic spots in Mianshan Scenic Area, and the traffic vehicles stop at many stops along the way: Longtou Temple - Daluo Palace - Yidouquan - Zhujiaao - Yunfeng Temple - Zhengguo Temple - Qixian Valley - Shuitaogou. We only have one day's work and our physical strength is limited, so the only attractions we plan to visit are Daluo Palace, Yunfeng Temple and Shuitaogou.
Taoism believes that the highest level of the thirty-six heavens is the Daluo Heaven, the so-called "Sanqing Shang, called Daluo". The Daluo Palace was built on the palace in the sky of Daluo.
The history of Daluo Palace can be traced back to the early Tang Dynasty. In the southwest of Jiexiu County, there is a dangerous pass tens of miles long, commonly known as Queshu Valley, which was the only way to Taiyuan in ancient times, and it was also a must for military strategists. When Li Yuan and his son raised troops in Taiyuan and fought for the world, they fought several tough battles in Queshu Valley.
In 616 A.D., Li Yuan, a general of the Sui Dynasty, wiped out Zhen Zhaier's rebel army here. In 617 AD, Li Shimin went south from Taiyuan, broke through Queshu Valley, and defeated Sui general Song Laosheng. From 619 to 620 A.D., Li Shimin and Song Jingang, the general of Liu Wuzhou, fought in the Queshu Valley, surrendered Wei Chigong, defeated Song Jingang, and laid the foundation for the eradication of Liu Wuzhou.
After several battles and countless killings, King Tang had the idea of repentance. In the second year of Tang Wude, Empress Dowager Cao, Li Yuan's mother, was seriously ill and could not be cured for a long time. Later, I believed the words of Taoist priest Langya Yunyou, and believed that it was caused by the harassing of the unjust souls who died in battle, so I prayed to Xuantan Zhenjun to appear and treat him. It turned out to be effective and cured the empress dowager's disease. So Emperor Gaozu Li Yuan issued an edict to build five golden statues of Xuantan Zhenjun in Langya Tiantai Mountain, Mianshan Daluo Palace, Sichuan Emei Mountain, Qingcheng Mountain and Nanjing Taiqing Palace. From then on, Daluo Palace in Mianshan began a glorious history of incense and prosperity. According to legend, Gaozu Li Yuan personally wrote the eight characters "Ancient and Mysterious, Dao Mianshan" and left it in Mianshan. Gaozu's princess also practiced Taoism in Mianshan, leaving a good story.
In the eleventh year of Tang Kaiyuan, Tang Xuanzong visited Queshu Valley to commemorate the several battles of the former emperor Taizong in Queshu Valley. Then he made a special pilgrimage to Mianshan, and went to Daluo Palace to offer incense, praying for the prosperity of the country and the people, and the country will last forever. Then an edict was issued to rebuild the Daluo Palace. Emperors and officials of successive dynasties continued to donate money to build it, and the Daluo Palace became a large-scale Taoist building complex.
However, after long years and continuous wars, the Daluo Palace gradually disappeared. The Daluo Palace we see now was rebuilt on the original site at the expense of entrepreneur Mr. Yan Jiying.
Came to the platform in front of Daluo Palace. Looking back at the road when I came, I really feel thrilled. The Guanlou in the distance is the Tangying Tower of Longtou Temple. Its terrain is dangerous, and it has the momentum that one man guards the gate and ten thousand men cannot open it.
This is the archway under the Daluo Palace. The inscription "The Husband Does Not Compete" is a saying in Lao Tzu's "Tao Te Ching": "The Husband Doesn't Fight, So Nothing in the World Can Compete With It."
Daluo Palace was built on the cliff of Lion Mountain. Looking up at the Daluo Palace, it is divided into upper and lower parts. The lower building is built along the mountain, with a total of seven floors, layer by layer. Each floor consists of three halls with wide hard tops. The seven-storey building includes the Temple of the God of Wealth, the Hall of Rescuing the Heavens, the Hall of the Three Officials, the Hall of the Sixty Yuanchen, the Hall of Doum, the Hall of the Nine Stars, the Hall of the Twenty-eight Stars, the Hall of Lingxiao, the Hall of the Sanqing, and the Hall of the Laojun.
The upper part and the lower part are staggered on the central axis, and there is an elevator on the ground to go directly to the 7th floor platform.
Come to the platform and look up at the upper part. There are 2 floors above the platform and 4 floors above the high platform. There are Zhongmiao Hall, Lecture Platform, Chaos Hall, Zhuxian Hall, Sutra Pavilion and other halls.
First come to the upper halls to visit. This is the gate of Lingxiao Hall, the upper hall.
Enter the door, then go up the stairs.
When I came to the high platform, there was a 4-story hall built on the platform. Each floor is 9 rooms wide. There is a front porch in front of the hall, and there are ten red lacquered Panlong columns under the porch. The hall is solemn and resplendent.
The first floor is Zhongmiaotang. There are restored statues in the hall, and the second floor is the lecture hall, which is dedicated to the statue of the Supreme Lord. A few of us only went to the second floor. The third brother and sister-in-law continued to climb the third and fourth floors. According to them, the four-story hall of immortals enshrines the ancestor Hongjun, which is a statue that has never been seen in other Taoist temples. However, this building is not like a Taoist temple, but like a museum. Just a quick look, that's all.
Go back to the upper platform and walk through the other halls. Taoism is a polytheistic religion with many gods and complex institutions, so it is a bit unclear. So I took a few photos and started to walk down from the seven-story hall in the lower part. The structure of the halls is the same, and the time is limited, so we can only change flowers on horseback.
According to the information, the Daluo Palace can be called the "No. 1 Taoist Temple in the world", and I deeply disagree. It feels like a tall reinforced concrete antique building.
Finally, when we got off the highway, there happened to be a traffic car coming, so we got on the car and went to the next scenic spot we planned. The traffic car stopped for two stops, and some people got off. We didn't get out of the car until Yunfeng Temple.
Yunfeng Temple, formerly known as Baofu Temple, got its name because it was built on Baofu Rock. Baofuyan is the largest cave among the hundreds of caves in Mianshan. It is about 18 feet high, 45 feet long and 15 feet deep.
Yunfeng Temple was first built in the Cao Wei period of the Three Kingdoms, and incense sticks have continued in successive dynasties.
Yunfeng Temple is the holy land of Pure Land Buddhism and Zen Buddhism. Master Tanluan, who laid the theoretical foundation of the Pure Land Sect in the Northern Wei Dynasty, researched and created the Pure Land in Baofu Temple, "gathering disciples to steam business", making Yunfeng Temple one of the ancestral homes of the Pure Land Sect.
In the fifth year of Tang Wude, Tian Zhichao, an eminent monk, traveled from Chang'an to Baofu Temple in Mianshan to promote Zen Buddhism and gathered more than a thousand disciples. Later, Tian Zhichao sat down and became a Buddha in Baofu Temple, and was honored as "King Kong Buddha", and Baofu Temple became the ashram of Kongwang Buddha. During this period, Buddhism in Mianshan flourished unprecedentedly. It has become a Buddhist holy place for both meditation and purification.
After a long period of time, Yunfeng Temple gradually withered. The Yunfeng Temple we see now was rebuilt with the money of Mr. Yan Jiying after 1996.
Came to the foot of Yunfeng Temple. There is a hotel on the side - Yunfeng Villa. During the peak tourist season, you can take their elevator up the mountain if you dine in the hotel. Now it is the off-season after the epidemic, and the door of the hotel is closed, so we have to climb up the steps.
There are 108 steps, symbolizing 108 kinds of troubles in life. Because there is no stop on the 108 steps, it is a little scary when climbing: if you fall, it will be dangerous!
After climbing all the way, we came to the first platform. There is a wooden archway with four pillars and three doors in front of it.
On both sides of the archway are the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower. On the front is the Palace of the King of Kong. The King Kong Palace is five rooms wide, with a hard mountain top. There is a front porch in front of the hall, and a horizontal plaque hangs under the eaves, inscribed "The Palace of the King Kong". There is a couplet hanging on a pair of corridor pillars in the middle, inscribed: "Heaven opens up huge stones to embrace ancient Buddha; Earth opens up spiritual realm to come to people from afar". It's boring to read. The pillars on both sides are a long couplet written by Mr. Fu Shan: "There are so many famous mountains, but there is no such thing as a stone volleying in the sky, forming a cassock with a ten-square round cover; looking at the majestic Buddha statue, there is a true god appearing, and three flowers gather on the top after practicing. The five qi are towards the Yuan." Mr. Fu Shan's writing style is really like flowing clouds and flowing water, which is extraordinary!
There is also a horizontal plaque hanging above the gate, inscribed with "Ciyun Fayu", which is said to be the imperial pen of Emperor Guangxu. There are also couplets on both sides of the gate. The title says: "The name of the cliff is Baofu, because of the intimacy of hugging, it has been completed by the peak for hundreds of thousands of years; the Buddha is called the king of the sky, and the sky is scattered and sparse, and trillions of soils are scattered everywhere." Artistic conception!
Both sides of the gate are also hung with silk banners, which are nothing more than fulfilling the vow after praying to God.
Naturally, the Kongwang Buddha is enshrined in the Kongwang Hall. Tourists who have not been to Mianshan probably have never heard of the Kongwang Buddha. Kongwangfo was originally an eminent monk in the Tang Dynasty, commonly known as Tian Zhichao, from Fengyi, Shaanxi, and later moved to Yuanwo Village, Yuci, Shanxi. At the end of the Sui Dynasty, Tian Zhichao worshiped the eminent monk Hui Zan as his teacher in Kaihua Temple, Taiyuan, and studied Zen. In the fifth year of Wude, Tian Zhichao came to Mianshan to promote Buddhism and became a generation of Zen masters.
According to folklore, in the 12th year of Tang Zhenguan, Emperor Taizong Li Shimin asked Mianshan for rain. Tian Zhichao ordered his disciples who were cooking to sprinkle the rice-washing water to the southwest, and nectar fell all over Chang'an. In the fifteenth year of Zhenguan, Emperor Taizong of Tang ordered Tian Zhichao to go to Chang'an to preach the Dharma and give lectures. At the right time, Tian Zhichao passed away. Taizong heard the news and sighed: "This trip has been empty for a while!" So he took the homonym and issued an imperial edict to grant Tian Zhichao the title of Kongwang Buddha. Tian Zhichao thus became the first eminent monk of Han nationality to become a Buddha.
On the left of Kongwangbao Hall is the Hall of Pharmacists, on the right is the Hall of Maitreya Buddha, and on the side is the Abbot's Room. The buildings on this platform were rebuilt from 1995 to 1998.
From this platform, there is a row of 60 steps to the second platform. I was a little tired from climbing the mountain and didn't want to go up. However, according to reports, there is the boneless real body of King Kong, so he struggled to climb to the upper platform.
In the middle of the upper platform is the Hall of the True Body of King Kong. Because all the components in the hall, including the platform and the door arch, are carved in stone, it is also called the "Stone Buddha Hall". The Stone Buddha Hall is a relic of the Ming Dynasty and basically maintains the style of the Tang Dynasty. It is the seventh batch of national key cultural relics protection units.
The hall is three rooms wide and one room deep. On the top of the mountain, there are couplets hanging on both sides of the gate. In the hall, the real body of Kongwang Buddha is enshrined, and on both sides are two Bodhisattvas, Manjushri and Samantabhadra. The so-called bone-covered real body refers to Tian Zhichao's body after his death, which has been molded into a Buddha statue. After thousands of years, the real body still remains the same, which is awe-inspiring. It is said that before the renovation, local farmers saw some clay sculptures of the Buddha statue fall off, revealing the real bones.
Behind the real body hall, there is a dark cave - Chaogong cave. It is said that it is the place where Tian Zhichao practiced and passed away.
On the west side of the Stone Buddha Hall is the Mingwang Hall. The Palace of the King of Ming Dynasty was first built in the Tang Dynasty and restored in the Ming Dynasty. The ten Ming kings are enshrined in the hall. The so-called Ming Wang is the wrathful image used by Buddhas or Bodhisattvas to subdue demons. In the past, I only knew that King Ming was the belief of Esoteric Buddhism, and there was no King Ming in Chinese Buddhism. There are many versions of the top ten Ming kings, generally referring to: Mashou Ming Wang, Jiang III Ming Wang, Angry Fudo Ming Wang, Dawei De Ming Wang, Dahuotou Ming Wang, Da Diuji Ming Wang, Laughing King Kong Ming Wang, King Kong Ming Wang, Dalun King Kong Ming Wang And step throw Ming Wang.
Moving on, there is also the Hall of Arhats. This hall was built in the fifteenth year of Zhenguan in Tang Dynasty. Tang Taizong recalled that when he fought Wang Shichong, there were thirteen monks from Shaolin to help him. He thought it was the incarnation of Arhat. So the imperial edict built the Arhat Hall in Yunfeng Temple. Now it can be seen that the beams in the hall still have the words "restored in the fifty-seventh year of Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty".
Walk to the Arhat Hall and you will be at the end, and then go straight ahead to reach the zigzag plank road to Zhengguo Temple. We didn't have that much physical strength, so we turned around and headed the other way.
Looking from here, you can see many strings of copper bells hanging on the opposite cliff. This is the famous "Voting Hanging Bell" in Mianshan.
It is said that in the 15th year of Tang Zhenguan, Emperor Taizong Li Shimin led his officials to Mianshan to worship Buddha. When I came here, I brought a special copper bell, which means "the bell is the soul". On the 17th day of the third month of the lunar calendar (Zhichao's enlightenment day), the villagers are invited to hang this copper bell on the cliff of Baofu Rock. Since then, the custom of hanging bells on the belly rock has been passed down from generation to generation and has become a unique feature in Mianshan.
Hanging copper bells on the cliff requires hanging ropes from the cliff, which is very dangerous. There are so many copper bells on the cliff that I don't know when they were hung up.
There is a plank road in the front section of the cliff to move forward. Going all the way, you can go deep into the depression of the belly cave. Came to the Five Dragon Hall under the cliff.
The Five Dragons Hall enshrines the mother and son of the Five Dragons. According to legend, Mianshan Mountain was originally owned by the mother and son of Wulong. When Tian Zhichao entered the mountain, Mother Long knew that he was the reincarnation of the ancient Buddha, so he deliberately lost Mianshan to Tian Zhichao by playing chess. The Wulong brothers were not convinced, and tried to break Baofuyan. Tian Zhichao and Zhichao subdued the five dragons with his hands on the top, and finally the five dragons converted to Buddhism.
There is a dragon pool in the Five Dragons Hall, probably because there is a dragon and there must be water. But there are also sayings that this is the place where Tian Zhichao suppressed Wulong.
When you reach the depths of Baofu Rock, looking out from here, you will have an extraordinary feeling of being far away from the world. "A day in the cave is a thousand years in the world", time stops here.
Start walking down from the upper platform. On the first and a half platforms, there is also a Guanyin Hall. But there is nothing special about it. Back to the archway of "Holding the belly and resting on the clouds", and then down the steps to complete the visit to Yunfeng Temple. (to be continued)
If you feel a little disgusted because Daluo Palace is a modern reinforced concrete building, Yunfeng Temple is enough to make you nostalgic. Now the largest Taoist temple and the largest temple in Mianshan have been visited. The next scenic spot planned to visit is Shuitaogou.
