Raoyi Temple

Raoyi Temple

Raoyi temple is located in Tongji mountain, two miles southwest of Liushu Town, Shehong County, Sichuan Province. It was built in the eighth year of Ming Dynasty (1443). In the sixth year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu of Qing Dynasty (1880), a large-scale construction was carried out. Raoyi temple is the seventh batch of national key cultural relics protection units.

A brief history of temples

Raoyi temple is located in Tongji mountain, two Li southwest of Liushu Town, Shehong. It was built in 1443, the eighth year of the Ming Dynasty. In the sixth year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu of Qing Dynasty (1880), a large-scale construction was carried out. The temple sits from west to East. In front of the temple is the mountain gate, followed by Maitreya hall, Mahatma hall, sutra collection building and Guanyin hall. There are wing rooms on the right and ring hall on the left, which are arranged in a quadrangle. The Daxiong hall was built in 1443, the eighth year of the Ming Dynasty. It is a wooden structure of the Ming Dynasty. It has a beam type beam frame. The ridge is made of hollowed out tiles. The two dragons are intertwined and the dragon body is inlaid with porcelain pieces. The main building of the Sutra collection building was built in 1599, the 26th year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty. The right building was built in 1882, the seventh year of the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty. There are 31 murals of the Qing Dynasty, light color ink painting, Buddhist stories and a small number of folk stories. The characters are vivid with strong folk flavor. The layout of the temple is reasonable, the structure is rigorous, the lines are bright, the brackets are simple and generous, and the ridge decoration is spectacular.

Architectural features

20 kilometers south of Shehong county is Liushu Town, the headquarters of China's famous liquor tuopaiqu. On the hillside of Jishan mountain in Nantong, a large area of ancient buildings, such as halls, pavilions, buildings and squares, looms in the shade. The red walls and green tiles are full of ancient flavor. This is the famous open temple in Central Sichuan, raoyi temple.

Out of Liushu Town, along hundreds of stone steps from the foot of Tongji mountain, there is a six meter high four storey blue stone font library. The original dragon pattern brick memorial archway has couplets on both sides: "the other bank flows northward, with white crane and jade beads, shining from left to right; Si mountain is the Western soil, with green dykes and elm willows, changing with each passing day.". On the west side door, there are two characters "Longpan" and "Huju", which are written by famous people in Song Dynasty. The design and decoration of the memorial archway are very exquisite, especially the dragon shaped pattern, which is full of clouds and mist, winding and moving smoothly. Unfortunately, this rare thing was destroyed in the cultural revolution.

20 meters up from the archway is a stone platform. The front of the platform is surrounded by blue stone carved railings, and there are banyan trees on the left and right. The shade blocks out the sun and it is extremely cool in summer. Behind the banyan tree is dashanmen, in front of which two ancient stone lions carved during the reign of Emperor Qianlong have been destroyed. On the left and right sides of the mountain gate, there is a wooden plaque with running script, which is called "the Zen forest" and "the golden chestnut forest". The font is quiet and graceful, and the connotation of muscle and bone is said to be written by Dong Qichang, a calligrapher and painter of the Ming Dynasty. The flying mast of the mountain gate is very exquisite.

Entering from the gate of the mountain, there was the temple of the heavenly king, with a wooden plaque and a couplet: when will Maitreya laugh at all living beings? When will Sakyamuni stop. There are walking towers on the left and right of Tianwang hall. Outside the walking tower are bell and drum towers. There are big clocks about four meters high and weighing more than two tons. There are many words on the face of the clock. In the heyday of raoyi temple in those years, the bells and willows of Qingyue were heard all over the dam.

The front of the Tianwang hall is a courtyard dam, behind which is the main building of raoyi temple, Daxiong hall. The main hall is three rooms wide and three rooms deep, with single eaves and nine purlins. Under the eaves, there are seven single steps and heavy Dougong. The frame is a beam lifting structure. In front of the Ming Dynasty, there is a golden pillar room. Under the forehead of the house is "Wei Da Ming orthodox eight years old, CI GUI Hai..." The inscriptions in the ink books coincide with the construction date recorded in Shehong county annals, which was compiled in the 24th year of Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty. Under the eaves, the Dougong has four sections of Jiaoke, eight sections of stigma, four sections of pingshen in the front eaves, three sections of pingshen in the back eaves, two sections of pingshen in the middle of the two mountains, one section of pingshen in the second eaves, and 31 sections of Dougong in the outer eaves. The hall is equipped with a modern ceiling, five with beams above the situation is unknown. The roof ridge is made of brick and grey plastic. Zhongdui is made of five layers of pearls. Two dragons surround the roof ridge. Zhongdui and dragon are inlaid with porcelain. There are three Buddha statues in the hall, with 18 Arhats arranged on the left and right. There are two original murals on the two walls. The figures are as high as two meters. Unfortunately, they were destroyed in ten years of catastrophe. Raoyi temple hall is one of the few Ming Dynasty buildings in Shehong County, which has important historical and artistic value. On the right side of the hall, there is a remnant stele, which records the architectural evolution and the rise and fall of raoyi temple.

Behind the main hall is the Jade Emperor building, which was built in the 26th year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty. The whole building covers an area of 200 square meters. The original 68 murals are mostly based on the list of gods. Some of them were destroyed in the cultural revolution, and there are 37 existing ones. All the beams on the building are decorated with colorful patterns, which is very beautiful.

On the right side of the Jade Emperor hall is the Guanyin hall, which also covers an area of 200 square meters. In the middle of the roof stands a seven story hollow ceramic tile archway with a height of 180 cm. There are four ceramic statues on the backs of two dragons. The larger Buddha Hall is more exquisite. In the courtyard in front of Guanyin hall, there are two osmanthus trees, which are nearly 100 years old.

Address: Southwest Erli, Liushu Town, Shehong County, Sichuan Province

Longitude: 105.40147612719

Latitude: 30.724085208159

Chinese PinYin : Rao Yi Si