Zhizhu Temple

Zhizhu Temple

Zhizhu temple is located in the west of Songzhu temple, No.23 Songzhu courtyard, Jingshan back street. According to the records of the internal affairs office of the Qing Dynasty, it was built in 1756.

In 2012, as a model of historic site protection in the Asia Pacific region, the protection project of Zhizhu Temple ancient buildings won the "UNESCO Asia Pacific Cultural Heritage Protection Award", which is also the first time that Beijing Architecture won this award.

In October 2019, Zhizhu temple was approved as the eighth batch of national key cultural relics protection units.

Architectural features

Zhizhu Temple

Facing south from the north, there are five storeys from Shanmen hall to houdian hall. There is a gate and a red wall outside the gate. There are three mountain gates, big style hard hill, big ridge, and stone forehead on the lintel to build Zhizhu temple.

On the second floor of the bell and Drum Tower, at the top of the mountain, the bell is suspended from the corner beam. The temple is three rooms wide and five purlins deep. The hall is built in the Ming Dynasty. There are red walls on both sides of the hall. The hall forehead is "Baogang Guangyin". The third floor of the square hall is the main hall, with three rooms in width and depth, surrounded by corridors; the double eaves have a sharp roof, the top is a brick top, five step single Dougong, horn beam hanging bell, the lower eaves with sparrow, three step single Dougong, and the spiral color painting. On the fourth floor, the hall is five rooms wide, with a large style of Xieshan tiles, a large ridge, a spiral colored painting, five single steps, a single cocked Dougong, a horn beam and a bell hanging. Inside is a ceiling at the mouth of the well, and the lintel of the Ming Dynasty has a forehead for "Xianqing Qingshen", so this hall is also called "Jingshen hall". The back hall is five rooms wide, with a large ridge of hard hill and tiles, with a kissing beast and a hanging beast on it, a spiral painting, a sparrow and no Dougong.

Historical evolution

In the northeast corner of the Forbidden City, the east edge of Jingshan, and the winding hutongs along the Beihe block, the ancient buildings of Zhizhu temple stand quietly among all kinds of buildings spanning hundreds of years, witnessing the changes of history. Inadvertently, it is a forgotten ancient temple, surrounded by fruit stalls, smoky factories and a substandard hotel. The old neighborhood around you will tell you that this ancient building complex is called "Zhizhu Temple", which means "wisdom Temple". With the passage of time, Zhizhu temple has undergone earth shaking changes after its initial glory.

Today, modernization has penetrated into every corner of China and become a huge force to promote everything. In this context, it's a tough task to recreate Beijing - and China's historical charm. However, before we go on with this topic, let's go back to history and start that dusty period.

Zhizhu temple, a leisurely and elegant building complex, has retained more than 600 years of historical memory. As the most important holy land of Tibetan Buddhism, its historical status was above the Yonghe palace. Around 1409, the seventh year of Yongle, Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty, with the construction of the Forbidden City, Emperor Yongle selected the northeast corner of the Forbidden City and the east edge of Jingshan to establish the Royal imperial Scripture printing factory, which was the place for the Royal printing of Chinese and Sanskrit classics. At its peak, a team of 60 to 80 scholars worked with about 860 monks in the factory. This is the former life of Zhizhu temple.

At the end of the 17th century, Emperor Kangxi respected Tibetan Buddhism, advocated the construction of Buddhist temples throughout the country, and built temples as gifts to living Buddha Zhang Jia II. In 1712, the Emperor Kangxi named Songzhu temple. Since the second Zhangjia, Songzhu temple has become the main residence of Zhangjia living Buddha in Beijing. The former imperial printing factory in Beijing was selected as the site for the construction of three important temples. The three temples form a line from east to west, namely Zhizhu temple, Fayuan temple and Songzhu temple, forming a large group of Buddhist temples. Zhizhu temple was inscribed by Emperor Qianlong. During the heyday of KANGLONG and Qianlong, Zhizhu temple, Songzhu temple and Fayuan Temple became the most important Tibetan Buddhist holy land in Beijing.

As one of the most outstanding religious leaders at that time, the "living Buddha" jangjia qututgtu lived in Zhizhu temple and adjacent temples, and often held various religious ceremonies and activities here. It gradually became a part of the imperial court of the Qing Dynasty. During the period of the Republic of China, the Buddhist Association of the same wish was established in Songzhu temple, with Zhang Jia, the seventh (19th) as its president. Since then, Songzhu temple has been a "Mengqi Xuanhua envoy". Until 1949, on the eve of the founding of the people's Republic of China, the sixth living Buddha still lived in Zhizhu temple.

After 1949, Zhizhu Temple experienced a series of earth shaking changes. Due to the social and political changes, most of the 3000 temples in Beijing have been converted to civilian use. With the passage of time, these temples also disappear out of people's view along with the modernization process of the city. In the 1950s, religious activities were stopped in Songzhu temple, Zhizhu temple and Fayuan temple, and Songzhu temple was occupied by Beijing blind rubber factory. In the 1970s, the wireless power plant merged and moved from Chongwenmenwai to Songzhu temple. Beijing blind rubber factory was replaced and Beijing Dongfeng TV factory was established. The TV factory demolished all the buildings of Songzhu temple's Tianwang hall, bell drum tower and Fayuan temple. The production workshop of Songzhu temple's Tianwang hall, bell drum tower and assembly workshop of Fayuan temple were built. Later, the TV factory also occupied the front hall and the west side hall of Zhizhu temple. In 1991, Beijing Dongfeng TV factory merged with peony group. Some former sites and buildings of Songzhu temple, Fayuan temple and Zhizhu temple were occupied by subordinate units of peony group. The attempt to develop "Peony Garden Apartment" on the former sites of Songzhu Temple Mountain Gate and Tianwang hall was unsuccessful. The real estate became a high-rise uncompleted building. As a result, the existing buildings of Songzhu temple were in shadow for a long time. Nowadays, there are no buildings on the south side of the middle road and the south side of the East Road of Songzhu temple. The main buildings on the middle road are the main hall, the throne hall and the Sutra collection building. These units use the cultural relics buildings as production workshops and warehouses, causing serious damage to the ancient buildings.

The whole story of renovation

In 2007, when Zhizhu temple was discovered by relevant people, it was dilapidated, surrounded by a group of buildings composed of houses of different times, which had long been forgotten by people. In the afterglow of the setting sun, the ruins exuded a kind of heartbreaking beauty of despair, which was also the reason why dongjingyuan management team wanted to rebuild the ancient temple at first.

The maintenance project started in 2008, and the reconstruction and maintenance of this ancient temple has become the place where the members of the restoration team put the most energy. In order to protect all aspects of the historical characteristics and the original structural style of the ancient buildings of Zhizhu temple, the cultural relic protectors spent more than five years, and the project is still ongoing. They not only restored the ancient temple buildings, but also retained a small number of buildings in various historical periods after the founding of the people's Republic of China, in order to ensure the continuity of history and the times. The details show their love for every inch of history here.

Adhering to the concept of "all-round preservation of historical features", dongjingyuan management team is open-minded to learn and recruit talents, and works closely with Beijing Municipal Bureau of cultural relics and a group of knowledgeable professional ancient architectural architects. Today, the main hall and other landmark buildings of Zhizhu temple are listed as government protected heritage, and the surrounding typical buildings of different historical periods are also listed as cultural relics.

"At the beginning, everyone thought that the restoration of Zhizhu temple was an almost impossible task. If we want to succeed, we can only ignore the time and cost," the architects who participated in the restoration work once said, "we compare and select the restoration methods very carefully, and try our best to make the restoration as old as possible." Select the materials that can be used from the old buildings, and then find the new materials closest to the old materials. According to the original appearance of the buildings, one-to-one reconstruction is carried out. The Greek temples and other world heritages that we are familiar with are all restored in this way. "This method is much more time-consuming and laborious than the method of completely demolishing and reconstructing with new materials according to the old drawings. Many people say that we are too" luxurious. "

But there is another problem: how to revive a 400 year old Buddhist temple?

Careful, patient and step-by-step. First remove the rubble, expose the column, and then repair the beams one by one, sometimes even brick by brick.

A total of 200 trucks of rubble were cleared here, equivalent to 500 tons of domestic waste. 80 cubic meters of new timber were purchased for renovation. 71 wooden columns were replaced and 1400 square meters of shed roof was renovated. A total of 43000 roof tiles were repaired.

A fire in 1961 caused serious damage to part of the roof of Zhizhu temple, so the architect carried out careful repair work on the tiles on the outer roof and the ceiling on the inner roof. In fact, the most delicate part of the project is the removal of a false flat roof that was used for winter insulation more than 60 years ago. The restoration work revealed a layer of exquisite wooden boards at that time, and some of the first Sanskrit paintings that had been dusty for decades were faintly visible, which made everyone very happy.

To clean and repair these panels, the artist's skill is crucial, and calligrapher Tang Guo and an ink painter enthusiastically accepted the challenge. Their team removed more than 400 panels from the ceiling, but only 70 of them were fully recovered and 120 were in good condition. Tang Guo listed the different sizes of panels one by one. He adopted the traditional method: no nails, putty as adhesive（

Chinese PinYin : Zhi Zhu Si