Luoji Temple

Luoxuan temple is one of the ten well preserved Huang temples and one of the five Chan temples in Wutai Mountain. It is said that due to the presence of sacred lamps, it was changed from Qing temple to Huang Temple in the Qing Dynasty. The two wooden buildings in the temple are famous for receiving guests from ten directions. It is said that Luoxuan Temple used to be very popular in the past, especially among the followers of the Yellow religion. After years of continuous contacts, it has become a very influential temple in the Yellow Temple of Wutai Mountain. There is a pair of stone lions of Tang Dynasty in front of the mountain gate. They are big and majestic. They are the only surviving stone lions in Wutai Mountain. There are four major halls in the temple, namely, Tianwang hall, Manjusri hall, Great Buddha Hall and the fourth hall. In the fourth hall, there is the most attractive landscape in the temple - "blossoming Buddha". In the center of the hall, the wooden painted big lotus will slowly bloom, revealing the four Buddha statues hidden inside.

Luoji Temple

Luoxuan temple is one of the top ten well preserved Huang temples and one of the top five Zen temples in Wutai Mountain. The two small wooden buildings in the temple are famous for receiving guests from ten sides.

Luoji temple, founded in Tang Dynasty, was rebuilt in the fifth year of Hongzhi of Ming Dynasty (1492 A.D.) and rebuilt many times in Qing Dynasty.

Luoji temple was announced as the seventh batch of national key cultural relics protection units in 2013.

Temple location

Luoxuan temple is located between Xiantong temple and shifangtang in Taihuai town of Wutai Mountain. It was built in Tang Dynasty. In the Tang Dynasty, Luoxuan temple was one of the twelve courtyards of dahuayan Temple (now Xiantong Temple), which was called shanzhuge courtyard.

Luoji temple was rebuilt in 1492 (the fifth year of Hongzhi of Ming Dynasty). During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, Li Yanfei made a vow for her son to ascend the throne, and allocated funds to rebuild it. In 1792, it was repaired again.

Luoxuan temple is one of the top ten well preserved Huang temples and one of the top five Zen temples in Wutai Mountain. The two small wooden buildings in the temple are famous for receiving guests from ten places.

Prosperous period

It is said that Luoxuan Temple used to be very popular in the past, especially among the followers of the Yellow religion. After years of continuous contacts, it has become a very influential temple in the Yellow Temple of Wutai Mountain. In front of the mountain gate, there is a pair of stone lions in the Tang Dynasty, big and majestic atmosphere.

Since the temple has changed from a green temple to a yellow one, it is no wonder that the statue of Manjusri riding a lion in the Manjusri Hall of the temple is not golden but milky white, so it is called white Manjusri. The lion of Manjusri riding a lion lies on a lotus stand instead of standing or lying on a brick stand. The shoulder flowers are stretched out on both sides of his shoulders, with sutras and wisdom swords on them. All these reflect the characteristics of the Chinese images in huangmiao.

At present, there are 118 real estate buildings in Luozhen temple, including the Tianwang hall, Manjusri hall, Great Buddha Hall, sutra Pavilion, Zen house, accessory hall and corridor. In the back hall of the temple, there is a well-known "flower to see Buddha" activity device, which is made of a "Holy tree" in the temple, becoming a very famous scenic spot in Wutai Mountain. There is a lotus platform in the hall, which is a turntable with water wave shaped sculptures.

Four Buddha statues

In Luoji temple, there are four Buddhas on the inside of the turntable. There are twenty-four heaven and eighteen arhat paintings with wooden petals in the center. The petals will open. When the petals open, the four Buddha statues, back to back and facing out, will appear. The name of "blossoming to see Buddha" comes from this.

Along the curved stone road to the front of the mountain gate, the stone lions on both sides of the gate, one male and one female, big and powerful. Most of the temples in the central area of Taihuai are carved with stone lions, which is the only one of the remains of the Tang Dynasty. There are four halls in the gate. The first is the temple of heavenly kings, in which there are four heavenly kings, also known as the four vajras. They are the eastern heavenly kings holding pipa, the southern growth kings holding sword, the Western wide eyed heavenly kings winding snake, and the northern heavenly kings holding umbrella. The folk call them the four gods of wind (sword), tune (HARP), rain (umbrella) and Shun (snake).

The second hall is Manjusri hall, which is for Manjusri Bodhisattva. Unlike the general Green Temple, the face of Manjusri Bodhisattva here is milky white, not golden yellow. There are shoulder flowers on both sides of the shoulders, and sutras and wisdom swords are placed on the flowers. Manjusri's mount is lying on the lotus rather than standing on the brick platform. All these reflect the characteristics of Manjusri statues of Huangjiao. The third is the Great Buddha Hall, which is for Sakyamuni Buddha (the whirling world on earth), pharmacist Buddha (the Oriental glass world) and Amitabha Buddha (the Western Paradise), collectively known as "the third Buddha". In front of the third Buddha, there are bodhisattvas who serve and support them.

In the fourth hall, "blossoming Buddha" is the most mysterious. In the center of the hall stands a lotus, which contains four Buddha statues. Sometimes the eight petals of the lotus will slowly open, showing the square Amitabha. In fact, this is the result of manual operation by skillfully setting up organs. When the monk drives the wooden wheel in the dark room under the disc, the through column will rotate, and the lotus will open or close, resulting in the landscape of "blossoming Buddha". In addition, 24 statues were made on the platform, which are called "24 days".

Folklore

The production of the flowering Buddha is related to a magical legend. There is an ancient pine tree on the east side of the mountain gate. When Zhang Shangying visited Wutai Mountain in the Song Dynasty, he witnessed a magic lamp on the top of the tree. Later generations respected this pine tree as "Buddha tree". In the Qing Dynasty, for some unknown reason, the tree died suddenly. In order to commemorate the Buddha tree, the withered tree was cut down, and the main trunk was made into "flowering Buddha". The branches and axe residue sawdust were buried in situ, and a tower was built on it, which was called "pine tower".

As one of the top ten Huang temples, Luoying temple is also a symbol of the unity of the Han and Tibetan Nationalities. Almost all the followers of Lamaism in Qinghai and Tibet come to Mount Wutai to pay homage to Buddha.

According to Buddhist classics, Sakyamuni's son was named "luoluoluo". At the age of 15, he became a Buddhist monk. He "does not destroy the precepts, and reads them unremittingly", which proves that arohango is known as "the first of esoteric practices" and has become one of the top ten disciples of Sakyamuni Buddha. It is said that he once showed his holiness at the site of Luosi temple and left his footprints. Therefore, Luosi is a temple dedicated to Luoluo. Luosi is one of the best preserved temples in Wutai Mountain. There is a fascinating "flowering Buddha" here.

In the main hall, there is a round wooden altar carved with water waves and eighteen Arhats on it; on the platform outside the altar, there are 24 heavens and four heavenly kings; in the center of the altar, there is a three meter high eight petaled lotus flower, each of which is painted with a golden fine brushwork Buddha, and four Amitabha Buddha sit opposite him in the center of the petals. There is a mechanism under the stage, the underground disc rotates, and through the bearing, the petals open and close, and the four Buddha statues appear and disappear; with the petals open and close, the water wave pattern on the stage and the eighteen Arhats also rotate, and the scene of Arhats crossing the river appears, which is very interesting.

The origin of the temple's name

The first is that "in 1792, two Tibetans surnamed Luo and Hou built the temple together. After the completion of the temple, in order to make it famous in the world, it was changed to" Luoyang Temple ". This is not true. No matter whether there are two Tibetans with the surname of Luo or not, it is not the year of Qianlong in Qing Dynasty that the temple was built. In the early and middle Tang Dynasty, Luoxuan temple was one of the twelve courtyards of dahuayan temple. During the period from emperor mingzong to the end of the Tang Dynasty (926-936), there was an Indian Puhua master's visit to Mount Wutai On the 21st, Dengshan lived in the pavilion and worshiped Luoxuan. This record shows that Luoxuan has been built by Buddhists in Wutai Mountain, but it is not a temple alone.

In the Northern Song Dynasty, Prime Minister Zhang Shangying came to Wutai Mountain three times and wrote the biography of xuqingliang when he was appointed as the governor and prison envoy of Hedong. He wrote: in the "Hall of Luohe" and "Hall of luohou footprints", you can see the magic lamp in the sky. He also saw that his house was damaged and he wanted to finish it in the future. In addition, there is a stele named "the names of the temples in Wutai Mountain", which was erected in the 31st year of Wanli in Ming Dynasty, on which the name of Luoxuan temple is also recorded. It can be seen that it is wrong to say that the name of Luoxuan Temple began in the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty.

The second is the theory of "Sixteen ancestors of the west". In February of the 11th year of Emperor Kangxi's reign (1672), the imperial stele in the temple says that "those who live in the temple are close to Manjusri, and their righteousness seems to be converted to the sixteen ancestors of the West.". The so-called western sixteen ancestors refer to the 16th ancestor of the twenty-eight ancestors of ancient Tianzhu Buddhism founded by Chinese Zen Buddhism, the venerable luoluoluoduo, who was born in the third century A.D. The Emperor Kangxi also said that it was "like" whether Luoji temple was named after him or not.

The third view is related to the prince Buddha. Luo Zhen also wrote "Luo Ying Luo", "Luo Hu Luo" and "Luo Hu Luo", which means "Fu Zhang", "Zhang Mu", "Zhi Ri". According to the Buddhist classics such as the collection of Buddhist scriptures, luohouluo yinyuanpin, luoyingluo was the son of Sakyamuni Buddha in his secular life. Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, was the prince of King Jingfan, king of the ancient Indian state of kapirawei. His mother was Madame moye and his wife was yasudara. When Sakyamuni was 29 years old, he was deeply moved by life, old age, illness and death. He gave up his court life and left his parents and wife to become a monk.

After six years of hard work, he became a Taoist under the bodhi tree. He realized the impermanence of various dharmas and the origin of various theories, and began to preach. Legend has it that Luo was pregnant with his mother for six years and was born on the night of Sakyamuni's becoming a Taoist. At the request of his father king Jingfan, he returned from the state of mojietuo to visit his relatives in the sixth year of Buddha's becoming a Taoist. Then the Buddha called Sharif to persuade him to become a monk and become the first Shami in the monk group. Ask Damu ganlian to shave his head, and Sharif to say the ten commandments of Shami for him, which is the beginning of Shami for Buddhism. Shami refers to a monk who is over 7 years old and under 20 years old and has received the ten commandments.

Luohouluoyin is the grandson of King Jingfan and the beloved son of Buddha. He has a high position in the monk group and is often praised. The Buddha is very strict with him

Chinese PinYin : Luo Hou Si