Chongxing temple Twin Towers

Beizhen Twin Towers

synonym

The twin towers of Chongxing Temple generally refer to the twin towers of Beizhen

Beizhen twin pagoda (also known as Chongxing Temple twin pagoda) is a national key cultural relics protection unit, located in the northeast corner of Beizhen City, Liaoning Province. It is two beautiful and straight Liao Dynasty ancient pagodas with the same style.

Historical evolution

Beizhen twin towers, located in the northeast corner of Guangning Town, Beizhen City, stand a pair of white towers. It is known as the twin towers of Chongxing temple. The two towers stand in confrontation between the East and the west, straight into the sky, solemn and simple, towering and magnificent. There are eight twin pagoda temples in China. There are five destroyed pagodas in the temple, and only three pagodas in the temple.

The first is the Yongzuo temple's twin towers built in the Wanli period of Ming Dynasty in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province; the second is the Kaiyuan Temple's stone tower built in Quanzhou, Fujian Province in the Southern Song Dynasty; and the second is the Chongxing temple's twin towers built in the late Liao Dynasty. Taking the architectural pattern of two towers standing side by side, the two towers in our city are the first.

Cultural relics protection

The twin towers in Beizhen are still in good condition after thousands of years of vicissitudes, which can be called one of the best in China. On January 13, 1988, the State Council approved it as a national key cultural relics protection unit. Due to the lack of detailed written records, there are many problems to explore the life experience and origin of the ancient pagoda.

For example, which dynasty, which year, which month? By whom? For what purpose? There is a lot of fog, and there are different opinions, which makes people confused. In the early years, it was widely said that the twin towers were built in the Tang Dynasty.

For example, Zhang Wenzhi, the magistrate of Guangning (today's Beizhen town), wrote in the inscription of the restoration of Chongxing temple in Guangning during the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty: "the temple was built in the 18th year of Zhenguan of the Tang Dynasty. Emperor Taizong ordered Yuchi Jingde to supervise the construction of the temple and built two floating pictures." I saw it when I was a kid.

Folklore

Another example is recorded in Shengjing Tongzhi: "Chongxing temple in Guangning County is located in the East and north corner of the city, with five main halls and one main gate. It is said that the temple was built when Tang Zhenguan was founded, although it was destroyed, its twin towers are as new as new." Both mentioned the twin towers and pointed out that they were built in the Zhenguan period of Tang Dynasty. In Beizhen, there was a folk saying: "the Tang dynasty built pagodas, the Zhu dynasty built circles, and the Qing dynasty built Buddha halls." It also shows that the tower was built in the Tang Dynasty. In addition, there is a babaojing in nanmajia Hutong of shuangtasi, which is said to have been excavated by Yuchi Jingde when he built the twin towers. Mr. Zhang Jing, who lives in the hospital, calls his home "Gujing thatched cottage".

Investigation and demonstration

In recent years, Mr. Luo Zhewen, a famous ancient architecture expert in China, and archaeologists have investigated and demonstrated the twin towers of Chongxing temple. Based on the construction method, architectural style and brick carving details of the twin towers, it is judged that the tower is Liao tower. Experts also confirmed that it was built in the late Liao Dynasty from the perspective of architecture.

There is a generally accepted standard for the chronology of Liao pagodas, that is, the dense eaves Pagoda in Liao Dynasty adopted the method of flat seat with lotus belt to bear the body of the pagoda, which was adopted after the reign of emperor daozong of Liao Dynasty. Therefore, it can be inferred that the building age of this tower should be from the period after daozong of Liao Dynasty to Emperor Tianzuo. The exact year is not known. There are also many opinions about the purpose of building the tower. Some people say that weichi Jingde built the pagoda to pay homage to the dead soldiers who died in the eastern expedition; there are also legends that two empress dowagers Xiao contributed to build the pagoda to pay for the Buddha's relics; one scholar put forward that the pagoda was built by Emperor Tianzuo of Liao Dynasty to avenge the dead of Xue's parents; in addition, there are also different opinions about the construction of zhenhaiyan and protecting the dragon vein.

The only way to solve the mystery of the life experience of the twin towers is to look for the twin towers themselves. Similar pagodas built in Liao Dynasty all have underground palace, middle palace and heaven palace, which contain many valuable materials and historical information. To be sure, the twin towers retain historical memories. The day when the underground palace, the middle palace and the heavenly palace of the twin towers are opened is the time to uncover the mystery of the twin towers' life experience. We are looking forward to an early solution to the mystery of the history of the Millennium pagoda.

Linglong pagoda

As a child, I studied in Shuangta primary school in Beizhen. The school is under the eyes of the twin towers. When children play on the playground during recess activities, they often clap their hands and sing aloud: "Linglong tower, Linglong tower, the 13th floor of Linglong pagoda..." Reading, playing, and quietly taking care of the tall and white twin towers, I always feel a kind of maternal concern. Even in the past half century, I still have a strong feeling.

Two white towers, one east and one west, stand side by side, tall and beautiful. The octagonal pagoda, the 13 storey brick eaves, the fully enclosed structure and the steel whip type tower brake are all full of mystery. Khitan man-made pagoda has its unique features and pays great attention to the beauty of decoration. In addition to a large number of brick carvings on the base and body of the tower and the bell, the tower is also covered with bronze mirrors. Starting from the lotus on the top of the pagoda, there are many bronze mirrors embedded in the middle of each layer of the eaves and the top and bottom of the pagoda's body. Each pagoda has 272 bronze mirrors. Today, these bronze mirrors have turned into black paint because of the air, acid and rain. We can still imagine the magnificent glory of that year. The whole body is covered with bronze mirrors, glittering and dazzling. The graceful and beautiful image reminds us of the pop stars who wear "Sequin" costumes. It's amazing that the Millennium Tower competition has such advanced innovation. A few years ago, I took advantage of the opportunity to repair the East Tower and came into contact with several bronze mirrors on the tower. There are sea beast and grape mirrors of Tang Dynasty, typical square mirrors of Song Dynasty, and bronze mirrors with the origin in Huzhou on the back. Why the specifications of these bronze mirrors are different? Is it due to the repair of later generations? Or is it due to the dedication of many faithful men and women when they were first built. The outline of the whole tower is plump and powerful, tall and straight and beautiful. The "score" of each layer is very appropriate, forming a kind of contour line with softness in rigidity and softness in rigidity. "Zen tower double sign" used to be one of the eight scenic spots in Guangning. There is a saying in laobeizhen: "if you want to be pretty, you should be filial." Look at the White Pagoda and the double eaves of indigo and indigo. Isn't this white and black the most standard pretty color? The two towers are tall and straight, dressed in pretty colors, and covered with bronze mirrors. What a charm they should have under the background of blue sky, white clouds and scorching sun! They are elegant, elegant and elegant, and they are falling down like a pair of twin sisters. So the brick pagodas with imitation wood components of Liao Dynasty can only be seen in the north of the Yellow River Liaoning and Inner Mongolia. It is a new development on the basis of the Tang pagoda. When I was a child, I heard the old people talk about the myth of "tower flying to Liaoyang". It is said that Chongxing Temple originally had three towers, which were the incarnations of the three Fairies in the heavenly palace. The three fairies envied the human world and secretly went to Yiwulu Mountain to play. They did not return for many days. They violated the rule of heaven and were demoted by the Jade Emperor to Beizhen zhenhaiyan: three sisters, three towers. At the temple fair of Chongxing temple on the eighth day of April this year, the elder sister fell in love with a handsome scholar. Since then, she has been thinking about it all the time. Later, the elder sister learned that the scholar had gone to Liaoyang to be an official. So on a dark and windy night, she flew to Liaoyang City to meet the people. When the jade emperor heard about it, Longyan was very angry. In a rage, he locked the elder sister tightly with a chain and could not be transformed into a human figure. Since then, Liaoyang City has added an exquisite pagoda. The two little sisters were implicated and punished because of their unwillingness. Since then, eight iron chains have been locked from the tower brake rod to the ridge corner of the eaves, and they have not been removed until today.

The charm of Liao tower

Pagoda, also known as floating chart, is a unique Buddhist building, originated in India. After Buddhism spread to our country, pagodas were quickly melted and absorbed by our traditional architectural civilization. Buddha, temple and pagoda were built everywhere. According to incomplete statistics, more than 500000 towers of various sizes have been built. Yeluabaoji, the leader of Khitans in the north, was founded in 907 ad. The great Liao Dynasty believed in Buddhism and regarded Buddhism as the national religion. Imperial power and theocracy were integrated into one. The emperors and empresses of Liao Dynasty all claimed that they were reincarnation of Buddha or rebirth of Bodhisattva. Khitan nobles especially respected Guanyin Bodhisattva as the God of the family. The name of empress Xuanyi of daozong of Liao Dynasty is Xiao Guanyin, and Guangsheng temple tower in Yixian County was built by her. Liao state built many pagodas in its territory. For example, Yingxian Wooden Pagoda, built in the second year of Qingning of Liao Dynasty, and Wanbu Huayan Sutra pagoda, built in Baita village of Hohhot City during the reign of emperor Shengzong of Liao Dynasty, have become the key cultural relics protection units in China. There are more than 20 Liao pagodas in the corridor of western Liaoning, represented by daguangji Temple Pagoda in Jinzhou.

From the perspective of French style and architectural style, the twin towers of Chongxing temple have the style of Liao tower, which can be called the typical Liao tower architecture and a shining pearl. The two towers face each other from east to west. They are all solid brick buildings with octagonal and thirteen stories of dense eaves. They are basically the same in shape and are composed of six parts: tower base, tower base, tower body, tower eaves, tower top and tower brake. The shape of the tower is characterized by a xumizuo on the platform base, a Dougong and a platform, a one meter high inverted lotus belt, which is the tower body. The outside of the tower body has a wooden structure with columns, Dougong and dense eaves, and the top is finished by a tower brake. There are eight sides of the pagoda. Each side has an arched niche. Inside, there is a brick sitting Buddha. The first step is to sit, and the back is a flame like back fire. On both sides of the pagoda, there are half of the reliefs standing on the side of the Buddha. On the niche, there are brick reliefs and two flying apsaras. On the whole, the two pagodas are very similar, and there are many differences when you carefully observe them. Except the East pagoda is 43.85 meters high and the West pagoda is 42.63 meters high, there are many differences in the brick carvings of the body of the pagoda. All the Buddhas in the East pagoda are wearing crowns, wreaths and holding magic weapons. The West pagoda is just to the south of the pagoda Inside the pagoda; the West pagoda stands on the wall without shallow niches; the top of the East pagoda is inverted trapezoid, and the West pagoda is dome umbrella shaped; the flying Apsaras on both sides above the East pagoda are flat, and the head looks inside; the West pagoda looks down and the head looks outside; in addition, the details of clothing and accessories are different. Exquisite sculptor, fluent

Chinese PinYin : Chong Xing Si Shuang Ta