Tower temple

Tower temple

Baita temple is the third-order ancestral hall of Chinese Buddhism. It is located in tianziyukou, Wangzhuang Township, Chang'an District, north of Zhongnan Mountain in Xi'an City, with high terrain and broad vision.

geographical position

Looking to the East, Wutai is green with many peaks; to the west, the thatched cottage is smoky with blue waves; to the south, Qinling Mountains is lush with trees; to the north, Guanzhong Plain is fertile with thousands of miles. It is the so-called dragon turtle back, the scenery is excellent, Sui and Tang Dynasties is the Buddhist monks' practice.

Brief introduction of ancient temple

Baita temple was first built in the second year of Taikang (281) in the Western Jin Dynasty and rebuilt in the fourteenth year of kaihuang (594) in the Sui Dynasty. It is called Zhixiang Daochang. Because the founder of the third order sect, Zen master Xinxing, died and was buried near the temple, it is also called the tower of Zen master Xinxing. It is the ancestral court of Buddhism in Sui and Tang Dynasties. In 771, the sixth year of Dali in Tang Dynasty, it was renamed Baita temple. Baita Temple flourished in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, with a huge scale, magnificent temples and numerous monks, covering an area of 1000 mu. It has the reputation of "riding to pass the Mountain Gate". According to the records of Chang'an written by song minqiu in the Northern Song Dynasty, it was renamed xingjiaoyuan in the third year of Taiping Xingguo (978), and later renamed Baitasi.

At the same time, Zhang Li, an epigraphist, said in a journey to the south of the city: "the hundred Pagoda Temple is at the entrance of Zigu (that is, tianziyu). Tang Xinxing's Buddhist pagoda courtyard is now called xingjiaoyuan. Compared with the numerous small pagodas, it is called hundred pagodas." It can be seen that the scale of Baita temple still existed in Song Dynasty. Since then, the temple has been declining. In the Ming Dynasty, Zhao, an epigraphist, wrote a book called "a visit to the ancient city? A visit to the south of the city" when he was touring around Chang'an. It is recorded that "(Hucun Temple) is also a hundred Pagoda Temple five miles southeast, and benxinxing Buddhist pagoda courtyard. On the side of the mountain, the burial tower of Kudi, Pei Xingjian's wife of Tang Dynasty, still exists. Compared with Yu xiaota, the so-called "hundred pagodas" in Zhang Li's journey to the south of the city. Now it's only three or five years old. The stone scriptures in front of the hall are unique. The temple also entered the Qin residence, so it was a little more solemn. The old paintings of Jin and Yuan Dynasties on the wall of the hall are magnificent. Another image of the monk, a gauze hat, a golden dragon, and a red robe, was created by Yun Dezhi. It means that the image of the master monk who built the temple in the Jin and Yuan Dynasties is also a poem. " The poem is the poem "visiting the hundred Pagoda Temple in the south of the city": "looking at the hundred Pagoda Temple in the distance, there are many pagodas on the side of the temple. There is grass on the bottom and branches on the top. " According to the analysis of literature, the scale of Baita temple in Ming Dynasty is still quite large and considerable.

Historical evolution

In 1862, many temples in Nanshan area were destroyed by the war, and Baita temple was not spared. Wang Hongdu's poem "you Bai TA Si" says: "the mouth of the valley meanders through the depth of Bai TA, and it's hard to find the smoke. Desolation blinds the trace of a thousand years, and a new generation remains in Xinjie. The old monk knows the past, and the guests still sing aloud. With the help of the hurdles, we can see where we are, where the river is vast, and where the twilight is Thus we can see the desolate and dilapidated scene of Baita temple on that day.

In the early years of the Republic of China, the ruins of the temple still exist, and the scale is not as large as before. Only the walls of the North Gate Tower (the Mountain Gate), the ancient locust trees and the Zhaobi are still considerable. There are three halls in the ruins, all of which have five rooms. They are named Chan Xing hall, de Dao hall and Shifang Daochang. There is a sutra house behind the temple, and there are more than 60 monk houses. At that time, the abbot of the temple was a monk. Inside and outside the courtyard, there are four acacia trees, one iron cast ancient Hongzhong weighing more than 2000 Jin, two black iron pots with a diameter of four feet, one towering ginkgo tree with luxuriant branches, and a square five level brick tower in the west of the temple, which is straight into the blue sky and independent of the south. In the southeast of the temple, at the foot of the mountain, there are more than 40 mu pagodas, commonly known as "shangrenfen", with dozens of stone pagodas.

Around the thirtieth year of the Republic of China (1941), the seventh branch of Huangpu Military Academy of the Kuomintang was stationed in the area of Cao village in Wangqu.

In order to build military barracks, most of the main halls and temples of Baita temple were demolished. All the magic tools and objects were looted, and the ancient bells, cauldrons, celebrity murals and Scripture buildings in the temple were completely destroyed. In 1949, there were only three main halls and six monk rooms in Baita temple. After two monks died, the temple was completely destroyed. There is a local folk saying: "the seventh branch school, don't do the right way; sleep in the day, demolish the temple in the night; don't brick, just wood." It reflects the people's abhorrence of destroying the temple.

Temple scenery

Baita temple has become a tourist attraction since the Jin Dynasty, and many celebrities have visited it. In the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Wang Xizhi wrote the stone tablet of Heart Sutra, which is now in the forest of Steles in Xi'an. Su Shi of the Northern Song Dynasty once stayed in this temple when he visited the temples of Nanwutai, Caotang temple and Taipingyu. Both Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty Wang Hongdu wrote "hundred Pagoda Temple" to express their feelings. There are extant inscriptions in the temple, such as the pagoda inscription of Buddhist monk Yong in Huadu temple, which was engraved in the fifth year of Zhenguan (631), the pagoda inscription of Buddhist monk dao'an in the third year of Zongzhang (670), and the epitaph of Pei Gong's wife in Taichang xieliu in the fourth year of Kaiyuan (716). The ginkgo tree behind the hall is said to have been planted in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. It is known as "the second ginkgo tree in China" and "the living fossil of a thousand years". It is about 30 meters high, with a crown of more than 100 meters and a girth of more than 18 meters. The shade covers half of the temple. The ginkgo tree is still flourishing after thousands of years of wind and frost. In 1998, Xi'an city announced it as a key protected cultural relic. In 1999, Japanese master Shiben Zhaozhen, an expert in the study of tertiary religion, visited Baita temple and praised that "this tree is a living witness to the rise and fall of tertiary religion".

The most recent restoration of Baita temple was in 1986. Under the leadership of old monk Longhe and his disciples, a new Mahavira hall was built next to the ginkgo tree. Inside the hall, there is a Buddha statue of Sakyamuni, which is colorful and lifelike. In the East is the great mercy Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, and in the west is the king of Tibet Bodhisattva. In front of the hall, pines, cypresses, palms, bamboos and flowers are widely planted. It is lush, winding and secluded. At the back of the hall, the thousand year old trees are full of vitality, covered with shade, solemn land, happy and affectionate. It is simple and elegant. Once again, it has become an ideal place for Buddhist disciples to participate in Zen Buddhism. The current abbot, master Longhe, is a native of Chang'an. He is a virgin and has entered Taoism. This year, he is more than 80 years old. He is the director of Xi'an Buddhist Association.

Famous Zen master

In history, the most far-reaching monk with the origin of Baita temple is Zen master Xinxing, the founder of the third order sect. Xinxing (540-594), a monk of Sui Dynasty, was born in Wei county (now Anyang City, Henan Province) with the surname of Wang. He became a monk when he was 17 years old. He became a monk in fazang temple in Xiangzhou (now Anyang City, Henan Province). He later gave up enough precepts, practiced asceticism, and attached great importance to practice. He believed that Buddhism should be timely, implement economy, not empty talk about theory, and vigorously promote the spirit of Mahayana altruism. All living beings are true Buddhas, and vow to give life and property to all living beings. He advocated that he should perform labor by himself, stop eating every day, and worship when he saw men and women on the road. He is the author of 35 books, 44 volumes in total, including the collection of miscellaneous records of Dui Gen Qi Xing, the collection of third-order Wei BIE Lu, and the third-order Buddha Dharma. In the seventh year of kaihuang (587), he was called to Beijing by Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, and set up another courtyard in Zhenji temple, which was quite popular among monks. In its heyday, other monasteries were established in the 55 monasteries of Chang'an. At this point, the third-order religion was officially founded and flourished, and was introduced to Korea and Japan one after another. In the 14th year of emperor kaihuang of Sui Dynasty, Xinxing passed away in Zhenji temple. More than 300 disciples, such as Jingming and huile, buried master Xinxing according to the instructions, collected his bones, and built a pagoda in lingmingfu (now the emperor's valley of Nanshan). Later, hundreds of his disciples imitated Lin's burial method and "gave alms with their bodies". After passing away, they were buried behind or on both sides of Xinxing's tomb tower. Over a long period of time, hundreds of pagodas centered on Xinxing tombs have naturally formed. Because of the numerous stone pagodas, it was renamed Baitasi in the sixth year of Dali (772) and became the ancestral court of the third order religion.

Address: Provincial Highway 108

Longitude: 108.93175800019

Latitude: 34.034447000087

Chinese PinYin : Bai Ta Si