Warm spring Huayan Temple

Huayan Temple, located in the east of Wenquan ancient town, is called "big temple" by local people. There is no historical evidence for the construction age of Huayan Temple, but in the investigation, the local old people said that there was a wooden flat under the main hall purlin, with the words "the 32nd year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty" written on it. This is consistent with the research of ancient architecture experts and scholars that it is the early architecture of Ming Dynasty. Therefore, the existing buildings of Huayan Temple are in the early Ming Dynasty, and from the perspective of its color painting and ceiling design, it should be a royal temple. Huayan Temple is magnificent, exquisite and gorgeous, which can be called the grand temple of Yuzhou Zen. During the cultural revolution, Huayan Temple was temporarily changed into a grain depot, which has been preserved to this day. In 2007, the TV series "the earth" was shot here for more than a month. Now it is a key cultural relic protection unit in China. Now the four corners of the hall are supported by many wooden piles to prevent the collapse of ancient buildings.

Huayan Temple

synonym

Warm spring Huayan Temple generally refers to Huayan Temple (warm spring Huayan Temple, Yu County, Hebei Province)

Warm spring Huayan Temple is located in warm spring town, Yu County, Hebei Province. It belongs to the national key cultural relics protection units. It was founded in 1399, the 32nd year of Hongwu in Ming Dynasty. It was changed to chongjiao temple in Shunzhi period of early Qing Dynasty, and later it was rebuilt.

Huayan Temple covers an area of 3400 square meters, with front and back halls from south to north, and East and west auxiliary halls on both sides. The front hall is three rooms wide and three rooms deep, with a single eaves resting on the roof, five steps on the brackets under the eaves, five beams on the beam frame, one step beams on the front and one step beams on the back, and smallpox inside, with exquisite dragon and phoenix patterns.

Historical evolution

Nuanquan Huayan Temple is located in the ancient town of Nuanquan. On the axis, there are the original Mountain Gate, Tianwang hall, Guodian hall and Daxiong hall. On both sides, there are bell and Drum Tower, accessory hall and Zen room. The hall has a single eaves, a broad roof, a rolling grass ridge, three sides into two, five steps on the outside eaves, a single arch, a ceiling, four melons and dragons in the Ming Dynasty, a painted Phoenix in the second, and cranes in the front and back porches. The hall is gorgeous in color and well preserved. It is a rare fine art.

The back hall is the main building of the whole temple. It has a single eaves, a broad roof, a rolling grass ridge, five rooms in width and four rooms in depth. The hall is majestic. The beams are made of huge materials, and the outer eaves are set with five heavy arches. The hall is full of bright and bright designs, and the beams are covered with colorful paintings. Folk painting techniques are used, including colorful dragon, unicorn, lion, flowers and so on. The paintings are rich in content, novel in composition and skillful in technique. There are three East and three West halls in the courtyard, with hard mountain and tile roof. There are also many Zen rooms.

Textual research on historical materials

In the history of Huayan Temple, there is a saying that "the Buddha's mirror in front of the temple and the green vegetable garden behind the temple". Now the "Buddha's mirror" in front of the temple is still clear and visible. "Foye mirror" is a round stone pool, about 15 meters in diameter, outside the front gate of the temple. The pool water is spring water, clear to the bottom, with Koi swimming at the bottom and white geese floating on the surface, which is very Jiangnan style.

There is no historical evidence for the construction age of Huayan Temple, but in the investigation, the local old people said that there was a wooden plaque under the main hall purlin, with the words "the 32nd year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty" on it. This is consistent with the research of ancient architecture experts and scholars that it is the early architecture of Ming Dynasty. Therefore, the existing buildings of Huayan Temple are in the early Ming Dynasty.

The existing two halls are Shuilu hall and Daxiong hall, which were built in 2014.

Murals in the temple

The water and land paintings found on the inner wall of the water and land hall of Huayan Temple are divided into two sides of the north wall, the east wall and the west wall, covering an area of about 80 square meters. On both sides of the north wall are ten pictures of Ming kings. The east wall and the west wall are divided into three rows: the upper, the middle and the lower. Separated by ink lines, there are 100 pictures of all living beings, including "Dharma Realm, four sages and six mortals", with about 600 figures. According to reports, land and water painting, namely land and water law meeting, is the image of gods used in the land and water law meeting, including murals, scroll paintings and a few stone carvings. Water and land images have formed a relatively complete system since the Tang Dynasty, but the water and land images before the Yuan Dynasty did not survive. The existing water and land images are basically works of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, distributed in the northern region.

Culture and art

The mural adopts the traditional painting technique of fine brushwork and heavy color, and uses the technology of powder and gold to show the metal texture, so that the picture has a strong sense of three-dimensional and decorative beauty, the lines are fine and flexible, and there is a strong sense of life and human feelings, reaching the artistic realm of both form and spirit. The proportion of characters in the picture is moderate, and the image combination is appropriate, which reflects the painter's skilled painting skills and level.

The composition of the picture is rigorous, and the colors mostly come from mineral pigments, such as cinnabar, stone green, and so on. Because of their good stability, they are still bright and gorgeous

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Address: Wenquan ancient town, Yu County, Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province

Longitude: 114.43585488591

Latitude: 39.80393374838

Tour time: 1 hour

Traffic information: it's within walking distance of the ancient town

Ticket information: Free

Chinese PinYin : Nuan Quan Hua Yan Si