Thousand Buddha Temple

Thousand Buddha Temple

The Qianfo temple, formerly known as Yuanhua temple, was founded by eminent monks Yu fanlan and Yu fakai. It is another grotto built at the same time as the largest Buddha in the south of the Yangtze River. The thousand Buddha Temple is located in the middle of the mountain, surrounded by luxuriant forests and bamboo trees. It faces the cliff to the South and has two caves. The walls of the grottoes are divided into 10 areas, each with 10 × 11 squares, one Buddha in each, 18 cm high, and nine squares in the middle.

Source of name

Yu Falan is a famous Buddhist Yijie master in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. There are seven people in Yuanhua temple where he lives. During his stay in Yuanhua temple in Shicheng, he was engaged in the study of Prajna. His two apprentices created zhihanzong in Dharma and Huizong in daoshen, which made Shicheng the center of Prajna at that time.

Yuanhua Temple began to open grottoes and build thousands of Buddhas in the third year of Qi Yongming (485 A.D.). It was one year earlier than senguru to Shicheng. After the completion of the grottoes, the temple was changed into a thousand Buddha Temple, which was destroyed during the Huichang period. It was rebuilt in the third year of Kaiyun in the later Jin Dynasty (946 AD). In Song Dynasty, Qi Bao Yuan was changed from dazhongxiang Fu to Qianfo yuan in the 15th year of Hongwu (1382 A.D.).

Landscape introduction

There are 104 Buddha statues in each district and 1040 in 10 districts. There are two Bodhisattvas on both sides, standing on the rosette. Although they were used for external application, they have now peeled off and reappeared. There are still statues of the Southern Dynasties. The statues of the Southern Dynasties grottoes are rare in the south. The cultural value of the thousand Buddha Temple is very high, comparable to those of Yungang Grottoes and Longmen Grottoes. There are 35 stone statues in the grottoes. Those who know them think that "in those days, Sakyamuni (from 35 Buddhas) became 53 Buddhas, which rose one after another in the three catastrophes, also known as Thousand Buddhas." the Buddha statues in the two caves contain the past, present and future generations, representing all Buddhas in them. The statues of the Thousand Buddhas have been included in the Encyclopedia of China and the volume of the world fine arts in the southern and Northern Dynasties jointly published by China and Japan.

Folklore and its development

There is a legend in the Thousand Buddhas' courtyard: the eminent monk Bo Seng Guang saw that the mountain peaks and the deep valley here were ideal places for Buddhas, so he decided to build a big Buddha. But even if you chisel the second, you can't finish the whole work. So the third was born into nanmingshan to be a monk. Like the second before him, he chiseled the great Bodhisattva. When it came to the God of heaven, the God of heaven was really moved, so he sent more than 1000 heavenly soldiers and generals down to Nanming mountain to help him, and finally chiseled the stone Maitreya statue. These heavenly soldiers and generals helped silk monk Guang to become a great Bodhisattva, but they fell in love with the world and refused to go back to heaven. They all went to a cave outside the Great Buddha Temple. When silk monk Guang caught up with them, ah, these people had turned into small Buddhas and sat on the cliff in the cave. Later generations called this "Thousand Buddha cave". Although this is people's imagination, it also shows that the thousand Buddha Temple has long been regarded as a great Buddhist temple. Today, the thousand Buddha Temple has become a hall of the Great Buddha Temple, which also conforms to this view.

The newly built "island Guanyin" at the entrance of the cave was moved from Yinyue cave, which made the thousand Buddha cave more colorful.

Address: Northwest Dafosi temple, Xinchang County, Zhejiang Province

Longitude: 120.904207

Latitude: 29.502581

Chinese PinYin : Qian Fo Yuan