Shentong Temple

Shentong Temple

Shentong temple is located at the foot of Qinglong mountain, Liubu, Licheng County, Jinan City, Shandong Province. It is a famous ancient temple and the birthplace of Buddhism in Shandong Province. Originally known as langgong temple, it was built in the early Eastern Jin Dynasty. In the first year of the Qin Emperor (351 AD), the founder of the temple was monk langgong.

The main axis of the original temple is the gate tower, the main hall, the thousand Buddha Hall, the Abbot's Zen hall and the Dharma hall, and the left and right wings are the Jialan hall, the Dharma hall and the zhailang hall. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, the temple was completely destroyed, and only a few ancient pagodas and tombstones were built in the site of the temple.

Overview of temples

The original temple was completely destroyed in the Northern Wei Dynasty and the Northern Zhou Dynasty. It was rebuilt in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty changed its name to Shentong temple in the third year of kaihuang period (583) because of his inspiration. The temple was abandoned in the Late Jin Dynasty, and was rebuilt in the Yuan Dynasty by Zen master Daoxing,

Later, it was destroyed by fire and rebuilt in Ming Dynasty. In the Qing Dynasty, temples gradually declined and became ruins.

Shentong temple is located in Jinyu Valley, kunruishan, 2km northeast of Liubu town. Kunrui mountain, also known as Jinyu mountain (Jinyu mountain), is located on the Bank of Jinyang River. Its east side is called Qinglong mountain, and the west side is called Baihu mountain. The valley between Qinglong mountain and Baihu mountain is called Jinyu valley.

In ancient times, the temple was the Linji Taoist center, and the famous Abbot was Zen master Fazan. The existing buildings include the four gate pagoda, the dragon and tiger pagoda, the base of the Tang Dynasty and the tomb tower forest. Most of them were built in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and were rebuilt by the government in 1985.

Shentong Temple site is the earliest Temple site in Shandong Province, and it is the Daben mountain of Shandong Buddhism. Although thousands of years of wind and rain have mottled the splendor of the temple, the ancient pagodas, old steles, cliff statues and so on still glow with brilliance and become a tourist attraction that people forget to return.

Temple legend

In Shentong temple, there is a legend that "the grace of dripping water should be rewarded by the spring". The story of Songyi tower is the story of filial daughter. According to records, in the Ming Dynasty, an official became a monk in Shentong Temple because he was too old and refused to merge with those in power. In order to take care of his father, his daughter became a nun in Yongquan nunnery, which is adjacent to Shentong temple, and took care of his father while practicing. Due to the limitation of fashion, the clothes that the dutiful daughter took apart and washed for her father could not be sent to the temple in person, so she had to build a stone pagoda at the junction of the temple and the nunnery. The clothes that she took apart and washed or mended regularly were stored in the pagoda and taken away by his disciples. Similarly, if the father has dirty or broken clothes, they are also sent to the tower, and the dutiful daughter takes them away to be washed and mended until the father dies. After that, the dutiful daughter still settled in Yongquan nunnery for a long time and became the host of a generation. She was the nunnery master with the legal name of "Mingxi".

Construction process

Buddhism in Mount Tai was mainly based on Zen, which was first introduced into the Han Dynasty. It was not until langgong came to Mount Tai in the Eastern Jin Dynasty that Buddhism began to flourish. At that time, Mount Tai in Qizhou became the earliest Buddhist Center in Shandong. The eminent monk Lang Gong built Shentong temple in Kunrui mountain, northeast of daiyin, and Lingyan temple in Fangshan Mountain, northwest of daiyin. Shentong temple is a famous temple in the history of Chinese Buddhism, and it is also the earliest Buddhist temple in Shandong. Lingyan temple is the place where the northern sect of Zen master of subduing demons preached. It has a great influence, with more than 1000 monks in its heyday.

Seng Lang was a monk in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. He once studied Buddhist Tu Cheng from the western regions. It is said that fotucheng has some magic skills. Besides being proficient in Buddhism, he can also serve ghosts and gods, call the wind and rain, communicate with gods and gods, and put sesame oil and rouge on his palm to see things thousands of miles away. Naturally, this is deification or romance, but its medical skills of curing diseases and saving lives are not exaggeration. Because, in order to win the trust of the society, the early monks used to rely on medicine or some "magic" to win the trust of others, confuse the believers, and finally sell the teachings of the Buddha. Seng Lang, as a master of Buddha Tucheng, may have learned some magic skills as well as receiving Buddhist education. For example, according to his biography, his ability of writing, geography and so on is a knowledge beyond Buddhism.

Perhaps it was because Seng Lang and his master had the same "profound knowledge" that he was immediately respected and valued by the rulers after zhuoxi's Shandong Province. He was not only worshipped as a deity by the Nanyan monarch who occupied Shandong Province, but also by the Eastern Jin emperor who was far away in the south of the Yangtze River, the former and later Qin kings who took charge of Chang'an, and the heads of state of Korea and Kunlun in other foreign countries He donated money to support the development of Buddhism. The first temple in Shandong is famous both at home and abroad. Seng Lang is also known as Lang Gong, and his temple is also known as Lang Gong temple. The scale of the temple is constantly expanding, and eventually becomes the most influential Buddhist resort in eastern China.

Sha Dong was the first monk to carve a Buddha statue in Shentong temple. He created the first Buddha statue on the cliff near Shentong temple in 619, the second year of Wude, Emperor Gaozu of Tang Dynasty, and began to carve a cliff according to the mountain. This monk named Sha Dong was 70 years old and should have been a monk in Shentong temple. Twenty five years later, another monk named Mingde came and built two stone statues in 644, the 18th year of Zhenguan. The reason was the same as Sha Dong. He felt that he was too old to follow the wind and candle. So he invested in carving two Buddha statues to express his ideal and pursuit. After that, monk Mingde made another statue in the third year of Xianqing (657) of Emperor Gaozong of Tang Dynasty, and inscribed it to explain the purpose of the statue.

The statue of a monk was not a heroic feat in the northern and Southern Dynasties, but it was just a common merit. However, if Sha Dong and Ming De dare to start the cliff sculpture career of Shentong temple in the early Tang Dynasty, they had to take some political risks. Because the rulers of the early Tang Dynasty did not highly praise Buddhism, nor did they advocate activities such as opening grottoes and making statues. Especially when someone told Tang Gaozu that his lineage came from Lao Tzu, the emperors of Tang Dynasty always regarded Buddhism as an unorthodox religion. Moreover, when Tang Dynasty changed the lifeline of Sui Dynasty, which worshiped Buddhism, it was not easy for Tang Dynasty to "go along with" the rulers of Sui Dynasty.

Therefore, when Lao Tzu and Taoism were promoted in China, it was a very important move for Sha Dong and Ming De to bravely break the world's great injustice, cut mountains and cliffs, and carve Buddha statues. This can also be seen from the inscriptions of the two monks' statues: praying only for themselves, regardless of other business. However, it was the advocacy of the two monks that added a bright and irreplaceable landscape to the site of Shentong Temple: the later believers expanded the area of the statues to form the largest cliff statues of the Tang Dynasty in Shandong. The pure land chosen by monk langgong, known as Jinyu Valley in history, is like a high backed armchair. Sitting in the north and facing the south, it hides the wind and covers the air. It is the first choice of geomantic treasure land in the southern mountain area of Jinan. Therefore, the 1600 year Buddhist cause has left countless historical and cultural relics here. On the ground and underground, Buddhist pagodas, temple foundations, stone pillars, column foundations, ancient wells, ancient millers, steles and so on can be seen everywhere. In addition to the Buddhist temple, Sha Dong and Ming De advocated a new landscape of thousand Buddha cliff statues. Later, the hosts also built a Pagoda Forest on the site in the way of long sleep. Temple sites, cliff statues and the tombs of eminent monks make the site of Shentong Temple particularly attractive. When history has entered the contemporary era, it has naturally been highly valued and protected by the state and society. The State Administration of cultural relics has announced four important sites, such as the four gate pagoda, as national key cultural relics protection units. There are so many national level important cultural relics on one site, which are not only the first in Jinan and Shandong, but also rare in China. This is the credit of the three monks and the crystallization of the sweat and blood of the ancient working people.

cultural antecedents

There are eleven stone inscriptions in the temple, including Ji Yuan stele 2, Ming stele 5 and Qing stele 4, which provide important information about the history of the temple, especially the changes of its rise and fall in the later period.

From the text of Xinggong Bodhisattva's moral stele in the second year of Yuanzhi reign (1322 AD), we know that after the founder of the temple, there were some eminent monks, such as Haigong (unknown age), Longgong (Qingli period of Song Dynasty), Yugong (jintaihe period). The 20th year of Chenghua in Ming Dynasty (1484 AD)

According to the clan system recorded in the reconstruction of the seven Buddha Shentong Temple stele in 1754 and the reconstruction of the Dharma ancestral hall stele in 1754, the Temple belongs to Zen sect. Zen is an influential sect in the history of Chinese Buddhism. Its founder is Dharma, a famous Indian monk. The establishment of Zen is an important event in the history of Chinese Buddhism and philosophy. There are not only the ancestors and eminent monks of Zen, but also many famous politicians, thinkers and writers we are familiar with. Among them are Bai Juyi and Liu Zongyuan in Tang Dynasty, Wang Anshi and Su Dongpo in Song Dynasty. Other inscriptions reflect the scale and economic situation of Shentong temple in the later period. For example, the nine inscriptions in Jiajing of Ming Dynasty and Qianlong of Qing dynasty recorded that the monks of the temple sold the forest land and other temple properties.

The most important cultural relic of the temple is the bronze relic letter, which is designated as a national first-class cultural relic. There is also a thousand year old Jiuding pine in the temple, which was planted by Seng Lang Gong in the Eastern Jin Dynasty.

Existing buildings

sketch

Shentong temple in the public praise, in fact, there is a more resounding name: four gate tower. Simen pagoda is a Buddhist building on the site of Shentong temple. There are three ancient pagodas similar to the age of Simen pagoda, namely dragon and tiger pagoda, Huanggu pagoda and Jiuding pagoda.

The four gates pagoda

Four gate tower

Chinese PinYin : Shen Tong Si