After a light snowfall, the sun was shining brightly in the capital, and the snow marks everywhere disappeared in an instant. It was a warm Sunday in late winter and early spring.
The earliest large-scale establishment of the capital in Beijing should be Yuan Dadu, and at that time a formal capital layout was arranged. However, it was not until the Ming Dynasty that the layout of the capital was truly perfected. In the Ming Dynasty, various functional facilities were built in the urban area. The city wall was also built in the Ming Dynasty, which is the current Second Ring Road. In ancient China, some people said that food is the most important thing for the people. Who said that? It was said by Li Shiqi, one of Liu Bang's advisers during the struggle between Chu and Han. Shiqi does not mean "eat its meat, wear its skin", it should be read as "one chicken", which may be the source of "Yaoji" in mahjong tiles. When Li Shiqi conspired with Liu Bang to capture Aocang in Xingyang, he had a plan and said, "The king regards the people as his heaven, and the people regard food as their heaven." Aocang was the warehouse where grain was stored in ancient times. Only when Liu Bang had military rations could he have enough to eat and win the world. Later, all the kings and emperors knew that food was very important, and if they wanted to be emperors, they had to accumulate food first. Before Zhu Yuanzhang raised his troops, he also listened to the whispers of the counselor Zhu Sheng, who wanted to "build walls high, accumulate food widely, and become king slowly." In addition to the Han people, the Mongols also learned this truth, and they built Ao Cang to accumulate grain in the capital city of Yuan Dynasty. In Zhu Di’s Ming Dynasty capital, the imperial court built more Ao warehouses in Beijing. These Ao warehouses were all located in the south of Dongzhimen, and there were Haiyun warehouses and Beixin warehouses in the north, storing corn shipped from the south via Tanggu. There are soldiers guarding with swords. Further south is Nanxincang, the largest granary at that time. There are also several granaries that are now invisible. In the far south there is a slightly smaller granary called Lumicang. As the name suggests, it stores the salary rice of Beijing officials, that is, the few buckets of red sorghum for every Ming Dynasty cadre. These warehouses can still be seen on the map of Beijing, and the place of Lumicang is called Lumicang Hutong.
Zhu Di, Emperor Taizong of the Ming Dynasty, entered Beijing and built the foundation of the capital. Later, he passed the throne to Emperor Renzong Zhu Gaochi; Emperor Renzong passed the throne to Emperor Xuanzong Zhu Zhanji. He supported art and produced the famous Xuande Furnace. Emperor Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty was extremely talented, but his life was thinner than paper. Xuande suffered from a sudden illness at the age of 38 in ten years, and died within a few days. Although the historical records did not say what kind of disease it was, such an urgent disease was cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. It seems that there was neither nitroglycerin nor Tong Ren Tang's Angong Niuhuang Wan back then. Xuanzong passed the throne to Zhu Qizhen, who was eight years old at the time, and the new emperor was Ming Yingzong, and his reign name was changed to Zhengtong.
One of the reasons for the final decline of the Ming Dynasty was the dictatorship of eunuchs, and the most powerful eunuch in this early period was Wang Zhen. There is a Nuanquan Town in Yu County, Hebei Province. The most famous acrobatic art in Nuanquan Town is called Shuhua. After dark, a fire is made to burn the discus, and then the molten iron in the pot is poured on the wall with a large spoon, and the iron flowers are splashed like Tree flowers are just as pretty. This eunuch Wang Zhen is a stranger from Nuanquan Town, but he doesn't play tree flowers, he went to take the exam for a man like Fan Jin. Later, he felt that it was too difficult to take the Jinshi degree, which is equivalent to a Ph.D., because copying other people's papers was not as fashionable as it is now. This Wang Zhen just gritted his teeth and stomped his feet. In Yongle's later years, he became a eunuch and entered the palace. It is also a very inspirational story, huh? After Wang Zhen entered the palace, he worked hard, but he couldn't bear it. After several generations of emperors, he didn't say anything. When Ming Xuanzong was in office, the most favored eunuch was Jin Ying, and Wang Zhen was sent by Xuanzong Zhu Zhanji to coax the children, that is, to serve the prince Zhu Qizhen. Zhu Qizhen was still young when he came to the throne, and the family affairs and state affairs were all controlled by the Queen Mother Zhang. The Queen Mother Zhang did not formally listen to the government behind the curtain, but informally governed the government. Empress Dowager Zhang forbids eunuchs to intervene in politics, so this Wang Zhen still needs to forbear. Emperor Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty promoted Wang Zhen to be the chief supervisor of ceremonies, who was older than Jin Ying's official and was the most powerful eunuch. Queen Mother Zhang passed away in the seventh year of Zhengtong, Wang Zhen finally endured it, and he began to explode in the eighth year of Zhengtong. Wang Zhen has done many bad things and is notorious in history. In the end, Ming Yingzong was captured in the Tumubao Battle of the Wala Mutiny, and he himself died in the rebellion.
After this Wang Zhen came to power, his ambitions swelled. In the ninth year of Zhengtong (1444), he ran outside the palace and built a mansion, and at the same time built a family temple on the east side of the mansion. He did not build his family temple in Yu County, his hometown, but in the capital; this family temple is not an ancestral hall, but a Buddhist temple. It may be because his ancestors have no one to worship, so he built a Buddhist temple and recited scriptures every day in order to save his ancestors. Where are these houses and temples in the capital? This Wang Zhen was very ostentatious. He built his house and temple next to the place where Ming Dynasty cadres received their salaries, that is, in the Lumicang Hutong. Isn't this purpose very clear? One is to show off to the cadres of the Ming Dynasty that you doctors are not as good as an eunuch like me. I can recruit monks to recite scriptures to Buddha for me, can you do it? The second is to intimidate those cadres. If any of you are dishonest, I will ask the monks to recite the mantra to the Buddha. Wang Zhenxiu's family house seems to have disappeared, and the family temple is now Zhihua Temple in Lumicang Hutong. "Wisdom" refers to the four wisdoms of the Buddha, which are the wisdom of the great circle mirror, the wisdom of equality, the wisdom of wonderful observation and the wisdom of accomplishment. Zhihua means "cultivating the four wisdoms of the Buddha".
The mountain gate of Zhihua Temple is very simple, just an arched gate with no windows on both sides. However, there are horoscope screen walls on both sides of the mountain gate, which is obviously higher than ordinary wild temples. When there is a horoscope wall, the gate will be recessed from the street. The place where I stood to take pictures, that is, opposite the mountain gate, is also recessed from the street. There must have been a shadow wall in this place. The layout in front of the mountain gate can circle a small square in front of the gate in the small alley, which is very similar to that, and the level of this small temple has been elevated out of thin air.
You can see that on the top of the mountain gate is the top of the black glazed tile single eaves. Temples that can use glazed tiles must have elements built by the emperor. Why don't yellow or green glazed tiles be used in temples built by imperial order, but black? It shows that the monks in this temple are not chanting scriptures for the royal family, this is Wang Zhen's family temple, and they are chanting private scriptures. To build a family temple for reading private scriptures, you see how much the Ming Yingzong Zhu Qizhen favored Wang Zhen?
After entering the mountain gate, there is the Tianwang Hall on the front, which is called Zhihua Gate here, which is also an arch gate, but there are dark windows on both sides. The two monuments in front of the gate are of course the monuments of meritorious deeds built by the imperial edict of Zhihua Temple, the original ones of the Ming Dynasty, but the handwriting has disappeared. On the top of the Tianwang Hall is also a black glazed tile single-eave Xieshan roof. This roof is in the style of the Ming Dynasty and is quite satisfactory. Look carefully at the ridges. There are five ridges on each ridge. This is the same specification as the harem in the imperial palace; but there is no fairy riding a chicken in the front. I looked carefully and it didn’t fall off. . Does this mean that because there are too many vertebrates, the fairy riding chickens must be reduced, and it must be lower than the royal ones. But looking back, there are immortals riding chickens on the front mountain gate and the roof ridge of the Bell and Drum Tower. Finally, after looking around, I found that there is no such fairy riding a chicken on the roof of all the halls behind. What is the reason for this?
The location of the Maitreya Buddha in the Hall of Heavenly Kings is now a big screen showing the promotional video of Zhihua Temple. The statue of Maitreya Buddha has disappeared, and the statues of the four heavenly kings on both sides are gone. The Wei Tuo statue behind Maitreya Buddha has been preserved, but it has been moved to the main hall behind and placed in a corner. This Wei Tuo statue is interesting. There are many eating forks radiating from his back, which shows that this is a guardian deity who eats Western food.
On both sides of the Tianwang Hall are the Bell and Drum Towers, which are also quite satisfactory.
Look at the top of the bell tower, isn't it beautiful?
Walk into the bell tower and take a look, there are still many wooden structures from the Ming Dynasty preserved inside. The one from the Ming Dynasty is still hanging upstairs, and has not been confiscated by the Dazhong Temple, but it is not allowed to go up to see it.
The Drum Tower on the opposite side has the same shape as the Bell Tower. The drum in the Drum Tower is still there, but it is definitely not from the Ming Dynasty, it was rebuilt in the Qing Dynasty. After taking it off for maintenance a few years ago, there is no reason why this drum could not be put back, so it had to be placed in the main hall behind.
How about it? Very beautiful, right? I was admiring it, and suddenly found that this drum was a bit special. I stepped forward and took a closer look, wow! The pattern on it is actually made of powder and gold! The last time I was in 2012 with my wife and brother was at the Fahai Temple at Modekou in the west of Beijing to appreciate the murals of the Ming Dynasty. That Fahai Temple was also built by an eunuch of the Ming Dynasty. This eunuch was also an eunuch under Ming Yingzong Zhu Qizhen, named Li Tong. This Li Tong repaired Fahai Temple before Wang Zhen repaired Zhihua Temple, in the orthodox four years. Moreover, Li Tong built a royal temple, so the Fahai Temple uses a yellow glazed tile roof. There are not only five ridge beasts on the ridge, but also immortals riding chickens. It is a full-scale roof. The Lifenduijin murals in Fahai Temple are very large in scale and well preserved. Compared with the murals of Fahai Temple, the drum in Zhihua Temple is much more dilapidated.
In addition to the Bell and Drum Towers in the courtyard of the Temple of Heavenly Kings, there should also be prayer flags and pillars. I walked around the yard and found that it was very inconspicuous hidden in the corner behind the horoscope wall, but the boulder below is very exquisite.
After passing the Tianwang Hall, the courtyard behind is the main hall, the Daxiong Hall, which is called the Zhihua Hall here.
Go forward and look at the main hall, which is three rooms wide and two rooms deep. Ming Dynasty style black glazed tile single eaves Xieshan roof, wooden brackets, painted beams. There is no platform, and the base is only one foot high, which is the standard of folk buildings. "Zhihua Zen Temple" is written on the incense burner in front of the door, read from left to right, it must have been produced in recent years, not an antique.
Since Zhihua Hall is the Daxiong Hall, the one enshrined in it must be the third Buddha. Sure enough, here are three wood-carved gold-clad Buddha statues. The original Buddha statue should be the Sakyamuni Buddha statue in the middle, the Eastern Medicine Buddha Buddha in the left hand, and the Western Amitabha Buddha in the right hand. The three Buddha statues were moved to the Daxiong Hall of Dajue Temple in Xishan when they were being repaired a few years ago. I saw them in Dajue Temple. Now the three Buddha statues here don’t know where they came from. The Eastern Medicine Buddha has no medicine pot in his hand; Holding the magic seal is relatively common.
The wooden structures in this hall are all original from the Ming Dynasty. Pay attention to those bucket arches, which are much smaller than those of the Tang Dynasty at Dule Temple in Jizhou. Of course, the scale of this hall is also much smaller than that of Guanyin Pavilion at Dule Temple.
You can also notice the ceiling, which is the structure of the Pingqi ceiling, but the ceiling above is empty. During the period of the Republic of China, the whole country was in war, the incense people were overwhelmed, and the temples were shut down. Many monks in the temples rented out or even sold temple properties to survive. The monks of Zhihua Temple were no exception. They sold the ceiling of the temple and the caisson on the top of the Buddha statue. Back then, the Nelson Museum in the United States sent a team to China to take advantage of the war in China to acquire cultural relics. They bought the ceiling and caisson of the Zhihua Temple for US$5,000. The caisson of the Zhihua Temple is in the form of a douba, which is an octagonal shape formed by two squares interlaced at 45-degree angles. The upper part is a circle, which is built up layer by layer. This form of Douba caisson is called Xingtan caisson. The altar of apricot refers to the altar where Confucius gave lectures. Because there are Buddha statues holding Dharma seal gestures on it, it is called the altar of altar. The apricot altar caisson in the Zhihua Temple is now in the Nelson Museum in the United States. It is the original Ming Dynasty, and it is said that the gold stickers on it are still there. The algae well in Zhihua Temple is the most exquisite Ming Dynasty folk algae well outside the existing Forbidden City in the world.
There used to be eighteen statues of Arhats in the east and west of Zhihua Hall, but now there are only the empty Xumizuo still there.
After seeing these Buddha statues and smallpox, I saw the statues of Wei Tuo and the drum in the corners on both sides. Suddenly, he found that there seemed to be something in the darkness at the base of the wall next to the Sumeru seat of the statue of Arhat. When he got closer, he found that it was the black glazed owl on the roof of the hall. Needless to say, this must have been removed during renovations in recent years, and the roof should be new now. I think the roof of the Zhihua Temple is still in the Ming Dynasty style, so the glazed owl kiss should still be the original Ming Dynasty?
The building area of this main hall is not large. I don't know what the Thousand Buddha Mountain behind the Buddha statue looks like, so I walked behind the Buddha statue. I went to the back and looked, why is it so dark, isn't the back door open? At this time, the volunteers in the hall came over and said to turn on the light for you to look behind. Once the lights are on, it's clear here. It turns out that behind this Buddha statue is neither the clay sculpture of Qianfo Mountain, nor the wood carving of Guanyin on the island, but a mural on the entire wall. This mural is not Guanyin Bodhisattva, but Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva and Ten Kings of Hades. The Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva wears a treasure crown decorated with a necklace, holds a tin staff in his right hand, and holds a precious pearl in his left hand. This image comes from the Sutra of Ten Kings of Ksitigarbha in Tantric Buddhism. The Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva on this mural is riding a lion, which should usually be the mount of Manjushri Bodhisattva. On the Bodhisattva's right hand is Elder Min, and on the left is Elder Min's son, Monk Daoming. The ten kings of Hades held wat boards in both hands and separated them on both sides. The image and painting style of these characters are exactly the same as the murals in Fahai Temple. This is the painting style of the Ming Dynasty, which shows that this mural is still an original painting of the Ming Dynasty. Zhihua Temple is only five years later than Fahai Temple. This mural has not been drained of powder and gold, but it can be preserved so well, which shows that the pigments of the Ming Dynasty were quite high-tech.
There is also a legend about Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva. It is said that in the Tang Dynasty, there was a royal family named Jin Qiaojue in the Silla Kingdom. The Silla Kingdom was located in the southern part of North Korea, that is, south of the Daedong River, most of the Korean Peninsula. After Jin Qiaojue became a monk, he went to Mount Jiuhua in the mainland to practice. The local rich man Min Elder provided Jin Qiaojue with food, drink and sleep. Elder Min also sent his son Daoming to practice with Jin Qiaojue, I guess he let his son take care of Jin Qiaojue. After Jin Qiaojue passed away, everyone found that his physical body was very similar to the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva in the Buddhist scriptures, and they later said that he was the incarnation of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva. From then on, whenever the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva was painted, Elder Min and Monk Daoming were painted on both sides.
Opposite this mural is not the back door, but a closed building, which also houses Buddha statues. This architectural layout is very rare. In the middle of the three Buddha statues is Sakyamuni Buddha, with Kasyapa in his right hand and Ananda's two disciples in his left hand.
There are side halls on both sides of Zhihua hall. The East Side Hall is called the Dazhi Hall. In the past, the three Bodhisattvas, Guanyin, Manjusri and Samantabhadra were enshrined in this hall. Now there is an exhibition of the history of the Chinese Yu Yu, which is used to make up numbers. This is Sheng.
Take a look at the street lamps decorated outside the East Side Hall, the new products of the 21st century, dedicated by the street aunts in Lumicang Hutong.
The Xipei Hall is called the Tibetan Hall, not the hall of Tibetan Buddhism, but the hall of treasures.
What treasure is hidden here? It turned out to be an eight-sided runner, and the algae well on it is still there. Wow! It was so shocking!
Look at its wood carvings. The wooden carving on the top of the cabinet is called a Pilu hat, which is very similar to the triangular lintel on the top of the American furniture cabinet, right? Don't forget that the American War of Independence took place more than three hundred years after this temple was built. This kind of carved furniture was not available in Europe until the late Renaissance. It did not exist in Chambord under François I. It was not until Louis XIV's Palace of Versailles that there were such carved wooden pediments and wooden columns on the top of the cabinet. Louis XIV furniture, that is almost three hundred years later than this temple.
The wooden carvings on the Pilu hat and the pillars are all Buddha statues and animals, which are extremely auspicious. It is said that there is a statue of Vairocana Buddha on the top of this wheel-runner, which cannot be seen from below. Anyone who has cultivated to the Tao can go straight up to the top to worship Vairocana Buddha.
Tibetan scriptures. There are forty-five grids on each side, and the eight sides add up to three hundred and sixty, which is almost the number of days in a year. Volunteers in the temple said that there is a scripture hidden in each grid. If you pretend to read a scripture every day and hide it around the wheel, you will read the scriptures for almost a year. It turns out that chanting can also be wholesaled?
On Xumizuo, it is not a picture of Lishi, but a relief of two dragons playing with pearls.
Looking at this Zhuanlun Zang reminds me of the Zhuanlun Zang in the Summer Palace, which is behind the "Longevity Mountain Kunming Lake Monument" to the east of Foxiang Pavilion. The Zhuanlun Zang is much larger than this one. I visited it a few times 20 years ago, but it hadn’t been repaired at that time, and the inside was a bit dilapidated, and the scripture boxes were all damaged, but the wooden structure was still there. The Sutra-turning Tibetans in the Summer Palace can be turned, and there is a push rod similar to the handle of a millstone that can be pushed. The scriptures of Zhihua Temple cannot be turned, and those who worship Buddha can only
Walk around it in circles.
Look at the ceiling of the Tibetan Hall, which is the original Ming Dynasty. It can be seen that the characters on the smallpox were written on the ceiling. I don't know how to recite the Buddha's name, so I don't know what the characters are. In the Ming Dynasty, patterns were painted directly on wooden boards to make ceilings; unlike in the Qing Dynasty, patterns were painted on paper and pasted on wooden boards. The same is true of Western roof paintings. The dome paintings of the Renaissance were painted directly on the roof by painters, and the same is true for mural paintings. In order to make the color of mural paintings more durable, they also invented frescoes. In the Baroque period, painters first lay down on the ground and painted on the canvas, and then climbed up to paste the painted canvases one by one on the dome to put them together.
Since there is no back door in Zhihua Hall, you can only enter the back yard through a side door. After entering, looking back, the back of Zhihua Hall is really dark! In fact, this picture is the back of the Zhihua Gate, but the back of the Zhihua Palace is also so dark.
Behind the Zhihua Hall of the main hall is a building. Since the Buddhist scriptures of this temple are located in the West Side Hall of the main hall, the building behind this is not the Buddhist scripture building, but the Great Buddha Hall.
There is an incense burner in front of the door, and the handwriting on it is the eighteenth year of Wanli of Ming Shenzong Zhu Yijun, which is 1590, more than 400 years ago. It shows that Ming Yingzong passed six generations, and the temple was repaired once during Ming Shenzong's Wanli period.
The lower part of this Great Buddha Hall is called the Tathagata Hall, and the second floor is the Wanfo Pavilion. The upper part is the roof of the hall with single eaves, and the lower part is five rooms wide and three rooms deep. This is the highest-standard building in the temple.
In the middle of the hall is a statue of Sakyamuni Buddha sitting on a lotus seat, and below it is a wooden Xumi seat.
On the right hand of Sakyamuni Buddha is the statue of Indra Shakya Bodhisattva, and on the left is the statue of Brahma. Di Shitian is one of the twenty heavens; Brahma is the three main gods in Hinduism juxtaposed with Vishnu and Shiva. In Mahayana Buddhism, it is one of the twenty heavens and the patron saint of Buddha. In Theravada Buddhism It is the four-faced Buddha, and the four-faced Buddha statue in Angkor Wat, Cambodia is Brahma. Legend has it that when the Buddha was born, Di Shitian and Brahma were guarding the left and right, and they have been following and serving the Buddha to practice and become a Buddha. In Mahayana Buddhism, there are sometimes two disciples on the left and right of the Sakyamuni Buddha statue, and sometimes these two patron saints. Di Shitian usually holds a canopy with the male and female elders, and here he holds a vajra; Brahma holds a Buddhist duster. The images of Tathagata Buddha and Dharma Protector are also found on the murals of Fahai Temple, which shows that there was such a habit in the early Ming Dynasty. Look at Indra.
Look at Brahma's flower cloak again.
Take a closer look at this flower cloak, which is a drawing of Lifenpile Gold. Both the Zhihua Temple and the Fahai Temple in the west of Beijing were built by eunuchs in the early Zhengtong period. The murals of Fahai Temple are very tightly protected, sealed and shaded; and the Buddha statues here are public, and anyone can watch and take pictures.
Look at the gables on the left, right and back of the Buddha statue in the Tathagata Hall. Below are the scripture grids and above are small Buddhist niches. The ceiling on the top has obviously been repainted in recent years.
There is a word on each grid, which should be the beginning word of the scriptures in this grid. This is the earliest book cataloging and indexing system in the world, and it has been more than 500 years ago. It is said that there is a set of woodcut scripture boards of the "Tripitaka" in the Qianlong edition in Zhihua Temple. The master version of the scriptures printed at that time is the earliest scripture board in existence, and it is now Fangshan Yunju Temple.
The upper floor of Tathagata Hall is the Ten Thousand Buddhas Pavilion, which is not open to visit now. According to the introduction, the ones enshrined above are Vairocana Buddha, Lushena Buddha and Sakyamuni Buddha. Vairocana Buddha is the Great Sun Tathagata. The Buddha has three bodies, Vairocana Buddha is the dharmakaya, that is, the pure Dharmakaya Buddha; Lushana Buddha is the Sambhogakaya Buddha, that is, the perfect Sakyamuni Buddha; Shakyamuni Buddha is the Responding Body Buddha. I have seen the world's largest bronze three-story Vairocana Buddha statue in the Pilu Hall of Zhengding Longxing Temple. From the outside, the Wanfo Pavilion here is definitely not as big as the Pilu Hall of Longxing Temple, so the Vairocana Buddha statue here It must be smaller, there should be only one layer. Each floor of the Vairocana Buddha statue in Longxing Temple is a drum-shaped lotus seat, which was made by Zhu Yijun, Emperor Wanli of Ming Shenzong; although the Vairocana Buddha statue here is a hundred years earlier than that one, I guess this Buddha statue should be It is also a drum-shaped lotus seat. There is also an apricot altar caisson on the top of the Buddha statue in Wanfo Pavilion, which was also sold to Americans by monks in the temple during the Republic of China. It is said that it is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Turn around the Tathagata Hall, and behind it is the Great Compassion Hall, which is equivalent to the back cover building, which is not open now. The Great Compassion Hall enshrines the merciful Guanyin Bodhisattva. There are two statues of Guanyin Bodhisattva in this Zhihua Temple. In the Dazhi Hall, which is the east side hall of Zhihua Temple, there are statues of Puxian, Manjusri and Avalokitesvara. status.
To the east of the Great Compassion Hall is the courtyard wall, and there is another sky in the courtyard next door; while the house on the west is too abrupt. It turned out that the small room at the back on the west side was used by employees, either for cooking or bathing in it. There is a small hall hidden behind it, which is an ancestral hall or mourning hall set up by Ming Yingzong for Wang Zhen. The temple introduction said that during the Qianlong period, a foreign official came to Beijing to report on his work. When he was waiting to see him, he visited this Zhihua Temple and was furious when he saw Wang Zhenling Hall. He told the emperor that that bullshit Wang Zhen had done so many bad things, that there was still a mourning hall for him in the capital. Lao Gan was shocked when he heard it, so he went to inspect it in private. After returning, Laogan ordered to rebuild Zhihua Temple and remove all traces of Wang Zhen. Even the merit monument in front of the main hall has been tampered with, and all the writing on it has been rubbed off. Because it was found that every stele in this temple had the words "Wang Zhen" on it, all the words on the steles were worn away.
During the reconstruction, the roofs of all the halls in the temple were renovated. Judging from the old photos of the 1930s exhibited in the temple, although the roofs have been crooked, it can still be seen that it is a typical Qing Dynasty style. The roofs we see now are all in the style of the Ming Dynasty, at least in the early Qing Dynasty, and must have been restored in recent years. Zhihua Temple also has an antique called Zhihua Temple Music. It was Wang Zhen who privately passed the ceremonial soundtrack from the court to the temple, and then gradually spread to the folk from here, becoming the soundtrack of folk Buddhist ceremonies and ceremonies, called "Beijing Music". Now there is a fixed band in the temple that often performs. On this day, they were invited by others to play music for some event, so I didn't hear their performance. However, I have heard a band of monks perform at Daxiangguo Temple in Tokyo before, and I don't know what it has to do with the Beijing music here. The music of Zhihua Temple in the past; that is, the court music of the Zhengtong period of the Ming Dynasty; without music scores, it can only be continued by the master and the apprentice. Later, in the Qing Dynasty, China also had a notation method, and the music of Zhihua Temple began to have a score, which is to write down the music taught by the master in the previous life. According to research, the music score of Zhihua Temple was first recorded in the 33rd year of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, that is, in 1694 AD. I once saw the earliest printed five-line musical score in the West in Segovia, Spain, which was in 1525. The Kangxi version of the music score in Zhihua Temple was rediscovered in the 1950s, and then some musicians who knew the score listened to the Zhihua Temple band's performance with the score, and found that what they played was actually exactly the same as the Kangxi version of the score. It shows that the inheritance of music in Zhihua Temple is very strict, and it has not changed for hundreds of years. Chinese music has its own characteristics, especially Han music, which is a very strict system and refuses to innovate. In fact, the Han nationality is very conservative in terms of music. Musicians have been called actors since ancient times, and they are classified as low-ranking and have no status. Minorities are good at singing and dancing, but the Han people are not. Anyone who sings or dances openly will be ridiculed. Until now, when friends get together, singing is regarded as a punishment. The loser of the game will be punished for singing, which means to shame you. Therefore, the Han nationality is a very introverted people who are ashamed to express their emotions. If the music of Zhihua Temple was really inherited from the Ming Dynasty, it would be religious music just like the oldest Gregorian chant in the West that can be heard today. The Gregorian chant is from the tenth century AD, five hundred years earlier than Zhihua Temple. Western music at that time was a twelve-tone scale; China was a pentatonic scale, that is, the pentatonic scale "Gong-Shang-Jiao-Zheng-Yu", which is equivalent to 1-2-3-5-6 in the twelve-tone scale. The West was the main tune music at that time, and so was China; the West had simple harmony at that time, but China did not. The ancient Chinese silk and bamboo music should not be called harmony. Therefore, I think that if I have the opportunity to go to Zhihua Temple to listen to their "Beijing music" performance, I should be able to know whether they are playing ancient Chinese Han music based on the above characteristics. style, and there are no 4 and 7 notes. Next time I have a chance to enjoy it. This Zhihua Temple is hidden in a small alley in the central city of Beijing. It is not conspicuous at all, and its name is not resounding everywhere, but there are really good things inside. Among them, I think the most prominent one is the extremely exquisite wood-carved eight-faced wheel in the Tibetan Hall; the other is the extremely exquisite wooden Buddha statue in the Tathagata Hall. The former's carvings are beautiful and lead the world's woodcut trend; the latter is the only existing Buddha statue painted in gold on a pile of powder in the capital, and it is also the final work of this technique, starting from Fahai Temple and ending in Zhihua Temple.
Visit Zhihua Temple and see the peerless beauty in the alleys.
