One year old and one hot summer, year after year looking for a cool house. In today's midsummer, the heat in Beijing is unbearably hot. It's not that the previous midsummer was not hot, but that the previous midsummer was not as hot as it is now. When I go out of Beijing in midsummer to find coolness, I often go west, such as Yu County, Chicheng, and Mount Wutai. This year, I have been going further west until I reached Datong, Shanxi. It is said that those Beijingers from Zhoukoudian in ancient times went to Datong in a hot summer, but unfortunately I did not find their footprints along the way. When I arrived in Datong, the Zhoukoudian where Beijingers stayed must have been closed. I stayed in a new hotel called Howard Johnson Hotel. As soon as you enter the door, the front desk will give you a cookie and a bag of dried apricots, both sweet and sour, suitable for anyone who comes to live. The service of this hotel is good, and the restaurant is also good. The food is delicious and cheap. Not only Shanxi fried meat is good, but Huaiyang boiled cabbage is also delicious. Once I came back late from a night tour, and the restaurant was already closed. I went to the front desk to beg for food, and the manager gave me a few cookies, which was enough to satisfy my hunger.

After the Beijingers in Zhoukoudian settled down in Datong, they lived and fought here. Life is easy to say, just live by yourself. Who is the fight with? Of course, it is with the Hu people in the north, the moon in the Qin Dynasty and the pass in the Han Dynasty. This is the northern front line. Until the Western Jin Dynasty, there were flying generals in the town of Sanguan, and Huma never went to Yinshan. Who are these barbarians? First there was Beidi, and then there was the Huns who were defeated by Qin Shihuang's Mengtian army. In the Western Jin Dynasty, the north of Datong was inhabited by Xianbei people. At the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, the imperial court was corrupt, and the Eight Kings Rebellion broke out, causing chaos in the Central Plains, and chaos in the north. Who are the five beards? Li Xiong of the Di tribe, Liu Yuan of the Huns, Shi Le of the Jie tribe, Yao Hong of the Qiang tribe, and the Duan clan of Xianbei in western Liaoning. In the end, Tuoba's Xianbei had the upper hand, and Tuoba Gui established the Northern Wei Dynasty and set up the capital in Pingcheng, which is now Datong. Tuobagui proclaimed himself king, called Emperor Daowu, Taizu of the Northern Wei Dynasty, and his reign name was Tianxing, which was 398 AD.

After that, the Liao Kingdom established Datong as Xijing, and after the Liao Dynasty in the Jin Dynasty, Datong was still established as Xijing, which is the accompanying capital. Datong claimed to have one capital and two capitals in ancient times, and it was the capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty and the accompanying capital of the Liao and Jin Dynasties. Therefore, Datong is one of the nine ancient capitals of China. Who are the other eight? There are Beijing, Nanjing, Xi'an, Luoyang, Kaifeng, Anyang, Hangzhou and Zhengzhou. These nine ancient capitals are all national historical cities. Since Datong is a famous historical and cultural city, there must be historical and cultural traces, which are historical sites. Therefore, the main activity for me to enjoy the cool air in Datong is to visit ancient times.

The most famous historic site in Datong is the Huayan Temple, and I'm definitely going to see it. Datong, the capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty, built an imperial palace and Mingtang in the city. The Ming Hall of the Northern Wei Dynasty in Datong is a place for royal ceremonies, and its building scale is much larger than that of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. This Mingtang in Pingcheng of the Northern Wei Dynasty is one of the four Mingtangs in Chinese history. The other three are Mingtang in Chang'an City in Han Dynasty, Main Hall in Ziwei City in Luoyang in Tang Dynasty and Bianliang Mingtang in Northern Song Dynasty. A few years ago, Datong rebuilt the Mingtang Relics Park on the former site of the Mingtang in the Northern Wei Dynasty. The royal family of the Northern Wei Dynasty must have built temples in the city, but none survived. Recently, real estate developers dug up the faces and crowns of the Buddhas of the Northern Wei Dynasty when they built houses in the city. The religious traces left over from the Northern Wei Dynasty are in Yungang, 30 miles outside the city. At that time, Li Daoyuan said in "Shui Jing Zhu" that there are "mountain halls and water halls, and smoke temples face each other". According to legend, before the Northern Wei Dynasty, the earliest Buddhist temple in Pingcheng was the Tongguang Temple built during the period of Emperor Ming Liuzhuang of the Eastern Han Dynasty. It was around 60 A.D. and has now disappeared. After the Northern Wei Dynasty, during the Xijing period of the Liao Dynasty, the Huayan Temple was built in Datong in the seventh year of Zhen Chongxi (1038 A.D.) of the Liao Xingzong Yeluzong.

Huayan Temple is the most important scenic spot in Datong City. Therefore, a large area of ​​the house in front of the gate was demolished to create a large square. Although Huayan Temple was regarded as a top-level temple in Liao and Jin Dynasties, and was related to Liao Yelu and Jin Wanyan's family, there must have been no courtyard square as large as it is now.

The mountain gate hall of Huayan Temple is very large, and the gate of the hall opens to the east. Khitan people's worship of Buddha was introduced from the Tang Dynasty in the early days. Before that, shamanism was the main religion, and shamanism had a lot of worshiping fire. Ghosts are good and the sun is precious. One day a month is dedicated to worshiping the sun at sunrise. All gatherings and ceremonies are respected to the east, and the gates of buildings and temples also face east. Therefore, although the Huayan Temple in Datong built by the Khitan people is a Buddhist temple, it also sits west and faces east. That being said, one should watch Huayan Temple before noon, after noon the front of the main hall will be completely darkened.

There is a five-foot-high bluestone pedestal under the gate hall, and there are hanging belts on the front of the pedestal for the emperor's relatives to step on, and ordinary people walk through the side doors on both sides. House-like gates, five rooms and three openings, the tops are closed with solid walls, reserved for shrines. The chessboard gate is installed under the front gold pillar. This kind of house-style gate can also be called the gold pillar gate. Because this gate is too big and majestic, it is better called gate hall. The top of the Shanmen Hall is a structure of bucket arches and beams, and the roof of the hall is covered with gray tiles and single eaves. The huge brackets and the huge cornices illustrate its Tang Dynasty style. Gray brick roof, brick carved owl kiss. The ridge is very short, which is also the style of Sui and Tang Dynasties. Look at the owl kisses on its ridge, they are definitely not original, but they should be in the original style. The mouth is swallowed, the body is upturned, the back has fins, and the tail is rolled inward. This is an atypical style of the late Tang Dynasty. Before the Tang Dynasty, there was only Chiwei, but no Kiss. Look at its pointed tail, with forks, facing north and south. After the Northern Song Dynasty, Chi Kiss had scales on its body and hair bundles on the tip of its tail. Although there are scales on the body of the Owl Kiss in the Shanmen Temple of Huayan Temple, there is no hair bundle at the tip of the tail, so I say it is an atypical Tang style. It also has a characteristic, there is a reverse small owl behind the ridge-swallowing owl, which is relatively rare.

The plaque "Huayan Temple" in the Shanmen Hall of Huayan Temple is actually written by Yan Zhenqing? It's incredible, the calligraphers of the Tang Dynasty inscribed plaques on the temples of the Liao Dynasty? When Huayan Temple was first built, Yan Zhenqing had been dead for hundreds of years.

You can enter the gate hall from the back and go through the back door.

The painted statues of the Four Heavenly Kings are still there. There are flowers and plants painted on the beams. The horizontal drape on the eyebrows of the door is full of paintings of Buddhist stories, which is the style of the Jin School. This mountain gate hall looks very simple, without fancy decorations, but its specifications are very high.

Standing outside the mountain gate, you can see that there are buildings on both sides of the mountain gate, with bells on the left and drums on the right.


In appearance, there is a flat seat outside the second floor, and there is a bucket arch under the flat seat, which is where the dark layer is. Although they are called buildings, they are actually pavilions.

Enclosing the Shanmen Hall and the Bell and Drum Tower is a large square in front of the hall, which is a standard configuration for Dasha. Look at the main hall behind.


This is the front hall, called Pu Guangming Hall. The front hall is five rooms wide and four rooms deep. There are partition doors between the open room and the secondary room. In the Ming Dynasty, there was an open pavilion on the front eaves, and a single eaves resting on the top of the mountain. The top of the main hall is a structure of bucket arches and beams, gray tiles and double eaves on the top of the mountain, and there are three ridge beasts on the ridge, and there are no immortals riding chickens. On the ridge brake on the main ridge, two spine-swallowing dragons are supporting a treasure gourd. This is the treasure bottle ridge brake of the Jin style.

Go to the side and look at Changxuan.

It is also a Tang-style style with huge brackets and far-reaching cornices. Inside the open pavilion is a Douba algae well.

Look down the porch again.

If you pay attention, you can see that the eaves and pillars are different. The upper and lower ends of the thicker one are slightly thinner, called Shousha, which is the Shazhu of Tang-style architecture. The thinner pillar is equally thick from top to bottom, and it is from the Song Dynasty onwards. After the Liao Dynasty, Huayan Temple was robbed and burned by soldiers and bandits several times, and it was rebuilt several times. From the difference of these pillars, it can be seen that the degree of meticulousness of the reconstruction and reconstruction is different before and after.

The incense in Huayan Temple is not strong, mainly because there are many tourists who come to visit. You see, this gentleman standing in front of the Buddha statue is admiring architectural art like me, and he did not prostrate on the ground to worship Buddha.


Buddha statues in the temple.

According to legend, there used to be a Universal Light Hall in the Bodhi Dojo, where the Buddha preached the Huayan Sutra. The Puguang Hall in Huayan Temple is the main hall dedicated to the three saints of Huayan. In the middle of the altar is Vairocana Buddha, with Puxian Bodhisattva in his left hand and Manjusri Bodhisattva in his right hand. As the name suggests, the Huayan Temple in Datong must belong to the Huayan sect, so the three saints of Huayan must be enshrined in the front hall. The ancestral home of Huayan Sect is Huayan Temple in Xi'an, a cave temple. The first ancestor was Master Du Shun in the Zhenguan period of the early Tang Dynasty.

Look at the three octagonal algae wells on the altar of the three saints.

The walls around the main hall are covered with panoramic murals, even behind the altars.

This painting is about the story of the fifty-three ginseng of the good fortune boy, which is also the story told in the Huayan Sutra, so it should be painted in this Puguang Temple. The story says that the good fortune boy was educated by Manjusri Bodhisattva, and went to study and practice the liberation method of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva. He paid homage to various masters along the way and learned various Dafa. Take a look at the ninth picture below.


This is to pay homage to Shengre Brahman in the Ishana settlement, go up the mountain of swords and go down to the sea of ​​fire, so that the sword and gun can't go into the flames and don't hurt Dafa. Don't look at the painting too hard, it was just painted by a professor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and his students two years ago, so the Brahmin is a Chinese-style bearded man, and the Shancai is also a boy in a Chinese-style New Year painting.

Boy Shancai participated in fifty-three great gods, learned both Chinese and Western cultures, and practiced countless wonderful dharmas in the world. Finally, he went to the island and met Guanyin Bodhisattva.

Shancai boy practiced according to the teachings of Manjushri Bodhisattva, and then was praised by Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, and finally stayed with Guanyin Bodhisattva to assist Bodhisattva in teaching and transforming all living beings. The image of Avalokitesvara in this portrait is quite integrated. The typical statue of Avalokitesvara on the sea island should be a standing statue, holding a clean bottle and willow branches, and there are often squids at the feet. This sitting statue of Avalokitesvara is generally called Avalokitesvara, and when there is water and lotus in front of it, it is called Shuiyue Avalokitesvara. The picture above seems to be Avalokitesvara on the island.

According to the standard, there must be supporting halls on both sides of the front hall, Puming Hall. Since the Puguang Temple sits west and faces east, its supporting halls are in the north and south. Look at the Beibei Hall, which is the Hall of Pharmacists. The plaque reads "Purify the Heart and Do Good", which is dedicated to the Oriental Pharmacist Buddha.

Take a look at the Amitabha Hall in the south side hall. On the plaque is written "Enlightenment to become a Buddha", which is dedicated to Amitabha Buddha in the West.

The two side halls have the same shape, five rooms wide and two rooms deep, with gray tiles and single eaves on the hard mountain top.

After passing the Puguang Temple to the west, there is another mountain gate behind it.

The plaque on the door reads "Shanghuayan Temple", a plaque in the Qing Dynasty. In the second room of the gate hall, the second general Hum Ha was still sitting.

There are two stone lions in front of the gate, and there is a hollow wooden door cover of the Jin School under the eaves, which is a typical architectural style of the Jin School. On the top is a hard mountain top with gray tiles and single eaves, and the owl kiss on the main ridge shows its age. The dragon's mouth swallows the ridge, this is after the late Tang Dynasty; the body has scales, this is after the Song Dynasty; the dragon's tail is turned inward and outward, this is after the Ming Dynasty. In the early Ming Dynasty, it was fashionable to insert a sword of Xu Xun on the back of the Chi Kiss, which is found on the Chi Kiss of the Forbidden City in Beijing. There is no Xu Xun's sword on this owl kiss, which may have passed the climax of the early Ming Dynasty. Xu Xun was a Taoist priest in Jiangxi during the Eastern Jin Dynasty. The imperial court heard that he was profound, and issued three gold medals to invite him to be an official. He took office in Jingyang Order of Sichuan Province (now Deyang), administered lenient administration, broadly benefited the people, eliminated the plague, and prospered Jingyang. Ten years later, he resigned from office and returned to his hometown to practice Taoism in the mountains. It happened that there was a monster dragon in Poyang Lake, and the people were suffering. Xun went out of the mountains to control the monster dragons, traveled all over the two lakes, Fujian and Jiangxi, killed all the monster dragons, and performed miracles everywhere. At the age of one hundred and sixty, he took his family chickens and dogs to heaven and became immortals. He is known as "Xu Xian" and is the founder of the Jingming Dao School. Because of the miracle of eliminating monsters and flood dragons in batches, later generations often used Xu Xun's sword to guard houses and ward off evil spirits. In the Ming Dynasty, Xu Xun's sword was inserted behind the back of the kiss to suppress demons and ward off evil spirits. Since there is an owl kiss on the gate of the Upper Huayan Temple in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, it means that the Huayan Temple was demolished into the Upper and Lower Temples at that time.

Entering the mountain gate of Shanghuayan Temple, the front yard is a passing hall, which is also the hall of heavenly kings.

Don't look at it as a palace, but there is also a decent-looking open building under the front porch.

As soon as the door opened after entering the palace, Fuxin came to the nostrils. It turned out that a camphor wood Maitreya Buddha statue was enshrined here, and modern people are willing to donate it.

Although there is a statue of Maitreya Buddha in this hall, there are no statues of the four heavenly kings, so it is only a passing hall.

The backyard is the main hall of the temple, the Daxiong Hall.


Good guy, the bluestone and blue brick base of the Daxiong Palace is really high enough, it is one foot five feet high. There is a circle of white stone balusters on the base of the platform, and there are wide handrails on the front. There are steles with words on the walls on both sides of the stamp, which is also a kind of merit stele. Look at the merit monument on the south side.

During the Huichang period of the Tang Dynasty, there was an eminent monk Huang Bo (Nian Huang Bo), a Zen master, who lived in Longxing Temple in Jinxian County, Jiangxi Province in order to avoid the difficulties of Huichang Dharma, where he recited scriptures and preached. Some people collected the quotations from his sermons into a book called "Zhonglinglu". Later, Zen Master Huangbo moved to Kaiyuan Temple in Xuancheng, Anhui Province to preach, and Nairen collected his sermon quotations into "Wanling Record". Later generations combined the two recordings into "Chuan Xin Fa Yao". The stele on the wall above is a fragment of Zen Master Huangbo's sermons.

The height of the base of the Daxiong Hall of Huayan Temple in Datong is probably the highest in the country. Just by climbing this foundation, a stranger has to become a mature person. Then you have to go up and have a look.


In front of the hall is a very large bluestone platform with bell and drum pavilions on both sides. Ah, the courtyard of the mountain gate of Shanghuayan Temple just now is too small, it is directly the Hall of Heavenly Kings, so there is no place for the bell and drum towers there. There are two pillars of prayer flags in front of the Bell and Drum Pavilion. In the picture, you can see the pagoda in Huayan Temple.

There are two upper and lower plaques on the gate of the hall, which are original objects of the Qing Dynasty. The architectural form of this Daxiong Palace is the only one in the country. It is seven rooms wide and five rooms deep. The pot door is opened in the Ming Dynasty, and the solid wall is closed between the two times. The same pot door is opened between the two ends, and the solid wall is closed between the two ends. Its outer wall is wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, like a city platform, and the whole hall looks very solid and heavy. This hall was built in the eighth year of Qingning (AD 1062) in the Liao Dynasty. It was destroyed by war in the second year (AD 1122) of Tianzuo Emperor Baoda in the late Liao Dynasty. Reconstruction, still according to the style of the Liao Dynasty. What we see now is the reconstruction of the Jin Dynasty, or the rough and wild style of the Khitan people of the Liao Dynasty. Later, although there were many repairs in various dynasties, the structure and style remained unchanged. Look at that huge bucket arch, it can scare people to death! The roof is a structure of bucket arches and beams, with gray tiles and single eaves on the roof, which is the same style as the Shanmen Hall of Huayan Temple, in the style of the late Tang Dynasty. The difference between it and the roof of Shanmen Hall is a pair of glazed owl kisses on the main ridge.

It is generally believed that the thirteen-piece Chi kiss on the main ridge of the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City is the largest in China, with a height of 3.4 meters. Huayan Temple said that the pair of eight-piece owl kisses in its Daxiong Hall are 4.5 meters high. Although Huayan Temple did not say that this pair of owl kisses is the largest in the country, this figure is very telling. Take a closer look at this pair of owl kisses, the northern one is rougher and older, from the Jin Dynasty; the southern one is from the mid-Ming Dynasty. They both have the same style, but the details are still different. The tip of the tail in the Jin Dynasty is forked, and the tip of the tail in the Ming Dynasty has hair bundles. It seems that the style of the Jin Dynasty is more pure, and the imitation of the Ming Dynasty is incomplete. Thinking back to the pair of owl kisses on the mountain gate hall, it must have been imitated in modern times, with more mistakes. The reconstruction of the Daxiong Palace in the Jin Dynasty was 80 years later than that at the beginning of the Liao Dynasty, so it should not have completely deviated from the original architectural style.

There are ridged beasts on the vertical ridge of the Daxiong Hall, take a look.


The immortal rides a rooster, followed by five brick-carved ridge beasts: phoenix, dragon, tianma, yuyu (blind fish) and suanni (pailed garlic). This order seems wrong? It must have been messed up by someone who didn't know how to repair it one day.

After seeing the thick and rough appearance, go in and have a look inside the hall.

The Buddhist niche is under the pillars of the rear eaves, minus the two rows of gold pillars in the front and back, so the space in the hall is very large.

There are five Buddha statues on the altar, which are the five Buddhas of the Tantra of the Han Dynasty, that is, the Tathagata of Five Wisdoms. In the middle is Vairocana Buddha (Dari Tathagata), the outer side of his left hand is the Eastern Aya Buddha (Fudo Tathagata), the inner side is the Southern Baoxiang Buddha (Baosheng Tathagata); the outer side of his right hand is the Western Amitabha Buddha (Amitabha Tathagata), the inner side is It is the subtle living Buddha in the north (Bukong Tathagata). Each Buddha represents a kind of wisdom of the Buddha, so it is called the Tathagata of Five Wisdoms. The three wooden Buddha statues in the middle were made during the Xuande period of the Ming Dynasty, and the two outer ones are clay Buddha statues a few years later.

Viewed from the inside, only the central pillars and eaves pillars remain after the removal of the second row of gold pillars. Behind the altar is a closed back eaves corridor, so it looks like it is five rooms deep. If you look from the outside, you should be able to see that the front slope of the roof is short and the back slope is long. Inside the hall is the Pingqi ceiling, on which are painted dragons, phoenixes and peonies. It is said that the earliest ones were in the Ming Dynasty, but I have not seen them. On the ceiling at the entrance, there is a four-square flower-painted planar algae well.

On the niches to the west of the main hall are Buddha statues in five directions, and to the north and south are painted clay statues of the twenty heavens of the Ming Dynasty.


These are the twenty heavenly kings in Buddhism. The four heavenly kings in the Temple of Heavenly Kings belong to the twenty heavens, and so does Wei Tuo. They are in order. When standing on both sides of the Buddha statue, the odd number is on the left hand of the Buddha, and the even number is on the right hand. When the twenty gods appear on the stage, they all lean forward to show that they listened carefully to the Buddha's preaching; I have also seen such a statue of the Twenty Heavens in the Golden Pavilion Temple on Mount Wutai. Don't look at the boundless magic power of these twenty heavens, but they haven't escaped from reincarnation. If they enjoy their karma, they will re-enter reincarnation. Therefore, the gods can only do good deeds and pay attention to their words and deeds.

There are many murals on the inner wall of the main hall, all of which are newly painted in recent years. But there is a Jin Dynasty mural that was accidentally preserved on the wall behind the gate.

It is also painted with powder and gilt. Due to the age, all the painted paintings have been lost, and only a little gilt is left, so the original appearance can no longer be seen. The best-preserved indoor murals I have ever seen are the "Courtesy Buddha Picture" in the Daxiong Hall of Fahai Temple in the west of Beijing, the fourth year of Zhengtong in the Ming Dynasty (AD 1439); before that was the "Chaoyuan Picture" in the Promise Hall of Yongle Palace in Shanxi In the eighteenth year of Daizhizheng (1358 A.D.), this mural in the Daxiong Hall of Huayan Temple is from the third year of Tianjuan in the Jin Dynasty (1140 A.D.). The latest murals in Fahai Temple are royal painters and top materials, and they are still very bright. The murals in Yongle Palace and Huayan Temple are older, and they are all made of folk painters and civilian materials. Although they are all powdered and gilded, they are all withered. I have seen the murals of Cimabue and Giotto in the early Renaissance in the Church of San Franciso in Assisi, Italy, which are about the same time as Yongle Palace, but not as good as Yongle Palace murals. At the same time, the murals in the Palace of the Pope in Avignon, France were even more finished, falling off and fading very seriously. It seems that the painting method of Chinese mural painting with powder and gold is more durable. Of course, there are also Dunhuang murals, which belong to the cave murals. The earliest ones are from the Northern Wei Dynasty, and they have lost their shape. The better-preserved ones are those from the Northern Zhou Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty, which are quite dazzling. 1,400 years ago, all the murals of this period in the West should have disappeared.

The largest existing hall in China is the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City, with an area of ​​2,370 square meters. The Daxiong Hall of Huayan Temple is known as the largest existing Daxiong Hall in China, with an area of ​​1560 square meters. The main hall is seven rooms wide, that is, there are eight rows of pillars; Not counting the subtracted pillars, there are a total of forty-eight pillars. The main hall is very large, with forty-eight pillars supporting 1,560 square meters. The main hall of Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou is called Baizhu Hall. The area supported by one hundred pillars is 1340 square meters, and its bay is relatively small. You can see that the Daxiong Hall of Huayan Temple in Datong has the majestic style in the north. It is said that the Daxiong Hall in Fengguo Temple in Yixian County, Jinzhou, Liaoning Province is even bigger than that in Huayan Temple, covering 1,830 square meters, and it was also built in the Liao Dynasty. Liang Sicheng said that the Daxiong Hall of Fengguo Temple is the largest Buddhist temple in the Liao Dynasty. Next time he has a chance, he will go to Jinzhou to see Fengguo Temple.

On both sides of the Pu Guangming Hall in front are the auxiliary halls, the Pharmacist Hall and the Amitabha Hall, and there must be auxiliary halls on both sides of the Daxiong Hall. On the south side of here is Puxian Pavilion.

The plaque of "Puxian Pavilion" is "Yan Zhenqing's book" again, so let's not talk about it. This is a wooden pavilion five rooms wide and three rooms deep. Inside it is a statue of Samantabhadra riding a white elephant with six tusks and two statues of assistants, all of which are recent works of camphor wood.

The octagonal algae well above the altar is just in the dark floor, and tourists are not allowed to go upstairs.

Opposite Puxian Pavilion is Manjusri Pavilion, which is exactly the same as Puxian Pavilion. Inside is a statue of Manjusri Bodhisattva riding a green-haired lion, and there are also two assistants, all of which are also carved from camphor wood.

In addition to Puxian Pavilion and Wenshu Pavilion on both sides, there are verandahs, which are also in the style of Liao and Jin Dynasties, and have the style of the late Tang Dynasty.

The Daxiong Hall is the last building in the current open area of ​​the Upper Huayan Temple, which will be transferred to the Lower Huayan Temple.

On the map, the Lower Huayan Temple is really under the Upper Huayan Temple, which is the south side. The mountain gate of Huayan Temple is aligned with the mountain gate hall of Huayan Temple. The "Xiahuayan Temple" plaque on the mountain gate was inscribed by Guo Moruo.

Entering the mountain gate is a release pond.

In ordinary days, no benevolent people are seen here to release lives. People who do good usually put fish here, save the fish from the pot and let him live here, which means doing good deeds and accumulating virtue. Monks release turtles here. It is said that there was an eminent monk in the Tang Dynasty who ate fast and recited Buddha every day, dug ponds in the temple to release animals, and accumulated a lot of virtue. In the fifth year of Huichang, Tang Wuzong Li Yan ordered the temple to be demolished and the monks dispersed, which was the disaster of Huichang. The above-mentioned eminent monk led all his disciples to travel south by boat to seek refuge. On the way, there was a strong wind and the boat capsized. The people had no choice but to search up and down in the water, thumping endlessly, lamenting that we good people would know that it would stop here, and it was suffering. In an instant, a giant tortoise appeared in the water, carrying everyone to the other side, like walking on flat ground. And when they landed, the eminent monk thanked the giant tortoise and called it Amitabha. The tortoise replied, "I am the old tortoise in the release pool of your monastery." Since then, benevolent people have continued to release lives.

The front hall of Huayan Temple is the Guanyin Hall, and there is a woodcarved and gilded Guanyin statue inside, which seems to be newly made in recent years.

Behind the Guanyin Hall is a green brick arch gate, which is the backyard.

The main hall is located in the backyard, and the main hall of Xiahuayan Temple also has a very high bluestone platform, which is almost as high as the platform of the Daxiong Hall.

In the middle of the courtyard stands a Jingzhu Pagoda, which should be an old object of the Liao Dynasty. Arhats are sitting in the north and south side halls on both sides.

On the base of the main hall stands a ceremonial gate, on which is written "Vatican Palace". Brahma is the king of Brahma, the creator of Hinduism, and invented Sanskrit. It is one of the three main gods of Brahmanism, namely Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. In Buddhism, it is called the Brahma King, which is the Erawan Buddha.

Go up and have a look.


This is the Tibetan Temple of the Bhagavan, and the Bhagavan is "Bhagavad", the highest god in India; the Tibetan is the scripture. This is the Buddhist scriptures hall. The plaque on the door is the original of the Qing Dynasty, and the plaque on the door of Beicijian is also the original of the Qing Dynasty.

This Bhagavan Tibetan hall also sits west and faces east, with five rooms wide and four rooms deep. There are four three-panel doors in the Ming room and the north and south rooms, diamond-shaped lattice flowers, and square partitions. The solid wall between the tips is closed. The upper part is a structure of bucket arches and beams, and the top of the mountain is covered with gray tiles and single eaves. The owl kiss on the main ridge is made of the same glass as the owl kiss in the Jin Dynasty in the Daxiong Palace, but slightly smaller than the owl kiss in the Daxiong Palace. On the wooden structure of the roof, there are words built in the seventh year of Chongxi, indicating that the hall was originally installed and was not destroyed in the war at the end of Liao Dynasty. From this point of view, the original building in Huayan Temple should be the Bhagavan Tibetan Hall. The Daxiong Hall was rebuilt in the third year of Tianjuan in the Jin Dynasty (1140 AD) after it was destroyed at the end of the Liao Dynasty, a hundred years later. However, judging from the Jin Dynasty's Chi Kiss of the Daxiong Palace, it was rebuilt as it was, and the Daxiong Palace can also be regarded as a Liao Dynasty building. In fact, the architecture of Liao and Jin Dynasties is similar. The overall appearance of the Mahavira Hall is more majestic and heavy, with the style of the northern nomads, while the Bhagavan Tibetan Hall is closer to the Tang-style architectural style of the Central Plains.

This hall is dedicated to the Buddha of the third generation. Under normal circumstances, the main hall of the Han Chuan Buddhist Temple enshrines the horizontal three Buddhas, namely Sakyamuni Buddha, Eastern Medicine Buddha and Western Amitabha Buddha; in different halls on the middle road, the vertical three Buddhas are the future Maitreya Buddha and the past Lantern Buddha. The horizontal third Buddha of Huayan Temple is located in the Puguang Hall and the north and south supporting halls. This Bhagavad hall is the Tibetan scripture hall, but it is dedicated to the vertical third Buddha. In the middle is the present Buddha Sakyamuni Buddha. His left hand is the past. Buddha Burning Lamp Buddha, the right hand is the future Buddha Maitreya Buddha. They said that these Buddha statues were originally made in the Liao Dynasty. Judging from the plump round face, lower bun and folded clothes, they are quite Liao Dynasty style. But there is one thing, the Buddha statues of the Liao Dynasty wore cassocks obliquely, with their right chest and shoulders exposed, and there were not so many ornaments on their bodies. From this point of view, these few Buddha statues do not seem to be from the Liao Dynasty, or are they remodeled in the Jin Dynasty? In addition to the three Buddha statues, the altars are full of statues of Bodhisattvas and attendants, all of which are made of wood and clay, some of which are gilded and some of which are painted. Look at this statue of Maitreya Buddha to the south.

Clay sculptures and gold Buddha statues have round and plump faces, low buns, and bare-chested clothes. There are two disciples kneeling at his feet, and Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha sitting in front of him. Standing on each side of the Buddha statue are three clay sculptures and painted statues of assistants, listening carefully to the teachings of the Buddha. You can see that the attendant at the front of the left hand of the Buddha has a graceful figure, indicating that the prototype of the statue may be a girl; the body leans forward slightly, indicating that this is a girl with profound skills. When she heard what she knew, she couldn't help grinning. Because of her toothy smile, the lady cleaning in the hall called her "Oriental Venus". Look at the backlight of the flame behind the Buddha statue, it stretches up to the Douba caisson on the top, and it is almost at the top. Usually, the algae well is in front of the altar and should not be directly above the Buddha statue. This shows that the interior space of the Bhagavan Tibetan Hall is not very spacious, or that the Buddha statue is too large.

I saw that there was a professional cleaning lady in the hall, so I was very unhappy and asked her why there was so much dirt on the Buddha statue, but she didn't clean it? She said that the government did not allow the altars to be cleaned, and that the statues were all soil accumulated from the earliest times. The top layer must be from this year, and the bottom layer may be from the Liao Dynasty. After the Liao and Jin Dynasties, Datong was no longer a small imperial capital, and Huayan Temple lost its royal status. I thought that there should be local officials or officials who came to worship the Buddha and made a wish to ask the Buddha to do things. If they made a big wish, there would be a sentence "the golden body must be rebuilt" in the end. Judging from the unified style of the Buddha statues in this hall, if they were not from the Liao Dynasty, they must be from the Jin Dynasty. Hasn't there been a "remodeling of the golden body" in this temple since then? Datong is a big city, isn't there a rich foreigner who comes here to have a son?

Since the Bhagavan Tibetan Hall is a Buddhist scripture hall, there must be a Buddhist scripture cabinet inside it. Really, it's all under the surrounding walls, in the style of a pavilion. The lower floor is the scripture cabinet, with a waist eaves on the top of the cabinet, and above the waist eaves is the second floor, with a flat seat with railings. On the flat seat is a niche with Buddha statues inside. On the second floor is a single-eave gable roof with bucket arches and beams, and various roof components are very complete. This scripture cabinet is a two-story pavilion made of wood. It is so precise and exquisite that it is amazing. It's too dark inside to take pictures, everyone understands.

While admiring the wonder of the Bhagat Temple, I walked back out of the Bhagat Temple to see the famous Huayan Temple Pagoda.

This Huayan pagoda can be regarded as a landmark building in the ancient city of Datong. We can see this pagoda everywhere in the temple. This pagoda can also be seen in the wide part of the old city. It is said that this is the second tallest wooden pagoda in China after Yingxian wooden pagoda.

The Huayan Pagoda we see now was rebuilt in 2011 according to the description of the ancients. Since it is rebuilding the wooden pagoda of the Liao Dynasty, it can refer to the existing wooden pagoda in Yingxian County, but it must not be completely copied. The Yingxian wooden pagoda is an octagonal wooden pagoda, and the Huayan Pagoda is a four-cornered pagoda. Yingxian Wooden Pagoda has five floors and Huayan Pagoda has three floors. Like the wooden pagoda in Yingxian County, the Huayan Pagoda has double eaves on the ground floor and single eaves on the upper floors; it also has eaves on the bottom floor and flat seats on each floor; both of them are all wooden structures. Although Huayan Pagoda has three floors on the outside, plus the dark layer in the middle, it should be five floors in total, plus an underground palace. However, the Tasha of the Huayan Pagoda is different from the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda. The Yingxian Wooden Pagoda has brick carvings in the Liao and Jin styles, while the Tasha of the Huayan Pagoda is in the Southern Song Dynasty style. The Liao and Jin Dynasties would never use that kind of wrought iron phase wheel, which is the style of the four hundred and eighty temples of the Southern Dynasty.

On the first floor, there is a plaque "Yang Reward Hongze", and the inscription is "Dongpo Book". This inscription is not common, and the common one is "Su Shi". The inscription "Taibai" on the "Guanyin Pavilion" in the Guanyin Pavilion of Dule Temple in Liao Dynasty in Jixian County is "Taibai", which may not be Li Taibai. The plaque on the second floor reads "Lingxu Siyuan", inscribed with "Mi Fu", a calligrapher in the Northern Song Dynasty and a native of Shanxi. The three-story plaque "Wei Ru Kunfeng" is inscribed "Tingjian Script". Huang Tingjian, a calligrapher in the Northern Song Dynasty and a native of Jiangxi, is as famous as Su Shi, called Su Huang.

There are also three plaques on the north side.

The plaque on the first floor is "Ciquit Ten Directions", inscribed with "Ting Jian Shu", and the ten directions are life, death, past, future, east, west, north, south, heaven and earth in Buddhist language. The plaque on the second floor is "shape should be everything", and the inscription is "Dongpo script". Looking at the third-layer plaque, it is actually Mi Fu's characters. Just from this "Dongpo Book", I feel that this inscription is weird. Moreover, none of these plaques are stele scripts, all of them are running script and regular script, which is definitely wrong. Suddenly I remembered the door plaque of "Zhili Governor's Office" in Baoding. It was because the original Yongzheng inscription was lost, and later generations pieced it together from words found in Qianlong's articles. These plaques in Huayan Temple in Datong are probably also of this origin, pieced together from celebrity calligraphy. Daliao and Dasong were sworn enemies, and the generals of the Yang family were the anti-Liao heroes back then. When Huayan Temple was first built, Su Shi was just one year old, and Huang Tingjian and Mi Fu were not born yet; moreover, all three of them had been officials in the Song Dynasty. From this point of view, it is impossible for them to write inscriptions for the first temple in the capital of the enemy country. It is really wrong to hang their characters in the temples of the Liao and Jin Dynasties, which implies humiliating them. In fact, Datong can ask local calligraphers to inscribe these plaques.

After seeing the appearance of the tower, of course you have to go in and take a look.

A Buddhist shrine is made between the four pillars in the heart of the pagoda, and of course there are Buddha statues in it. There are stairs next to it to go down to the underground palace.

The entire underground palace is made of pure copper. There are statues of Sakyamuni Buddha on all sides.

There are also many small Buddhist niches dug on the surrounding walls, and there are Buddha statues inside. It is said that there are a thousand Buddha statues in total.

In the center is a copper pavilion with a stupa in it. Tourists came forward to pay their respects one after another, but it was not a Buddhist relic, but the relic of a certain eminent monk in the temple in history.

When Huayan Temple was first built, there should have been Buddha relics in the underground palace under the pagoda, but they were probably lost in the later wars. There are also some reliefs on the wall of the relic pavilion, which are pictures of the eight phases of Buddha's life, which are Tushita, bodiless, birth, monk, demon, enlightenment, wheel turning and Nirvana.

Walk clockwise around the underground palace and climb up to the ground again. I saw five offerings of imitation cloisonne in the same style in front of the Buddhist niches in the temple, all of which are very new. That is incense burners, candlesticks and vases. Each has a different name on it.

This must be alms offered by the pilgrims.

According to tradition, the pagoda courtyard is the last building of the temple. If the pagoda is in the temple, there should be a back cover building behind the pagoda. When I walked to the back of the tower, I saw that there was indeed a back building here.

The back cover building is usually a Buddhist scripture building. However, the scripture building of Huayan Temple is a Bhagavat hall, so the back building must have other functions. Now it is the office space for lay people in the temple, and no monks work here.

The history of Huayan Temple should be before the Liao Dynasty. Some say it began in Li Tang, some say it was repaired by Yuchi Jingde, and some say it was first built in the Northern Wei Dynasty, but there are no traces of these. I guess the earlier small temple was occupied by Jianhuayan Temple. Now the earliest original building in Huayan Temple in Datong is the Bhagat Tibetan Hall in Lower Huayan Temple, the Daxiong Hall in Upper Huayan Temple was the first reconstruction of the Jin Dynasty after the Liao Dynasty, and the Puguang Temple may be destroyed in the early Qing Dynasty reconstructed. The others are all buildings after the Qing Dynasty, and it is estimated that most of them are rebuilt buildings in this century. Those buildings are not in key positions, so it should not be deliberately imitating the original Liao and Jin styles. The supporting halls, passing halls, and the bell and drum towers seen now are all imitated from the Liao and Jin styles, indicating that they are likely to be rebuilt in this century.

Although the main hall of Huayan Temple is not the original one of the Liao Dynasty, it is the most shocking hall. It can best reflect the rough style of the northern nomads when they first learned the architecture of the Central Plains, which is very barbaric. The connotation of the Bhagavan Tibetan Temple is too rich, and you have to look carefully. The groups of Buddha statues, the wooden attics wall by wall, and the algae wells are all worth seeing. The biggest feature of Puguang Temple is the huge open pavilion in front of the building, which is a feature of the Jinpai main hall. It may come from the dedicated hall in front of the Jinci Temple of the Virgin. I have seen in many places in Shanxi that an open pavilion is added in front of the main hall as the front hall, and their function is to offer sacrifices inside during ceremonies. Moreover, because only Pu Guangming Hall has eaves and verandahs among these halls, you can see the characteristics of the Tang Dynasty that it deliberately inherited, such as huge brackets, far-reaching cornices, and those killing pillars. I once saw the original Tang Dynasty eaves pillars in the main hall of Hualin Temple in Fuzhou, which are thicker than the eaves pillars of Pu Guangming Hall.

In short, these halls of Huayan Temple in Datong are really worth seeing. The reconstruction of the Huayan Pagoda was not very successful, let's take a look. Then you can also see other historical sites in Datong.


(to be continued)