Yongning Temple site

Yongning Temple site

Yongning Temple site is located in the southwest of the palace city of the Northern Wei Dynasty and the west side of tongtuo street along the North-South central axis of Luoyang City of the Northern Wei Dynasty. It was built in 516, the first year of Xiping, Emperor Xiaoming of the Northern Wei Dynasty. It was built by the Hu family, Empress Dowager Ling. It was burned in 534, the third year of Yongxi.

The plan of the temple is rectangular, surrounded by walls. There is one gate on each side. The south gate is located in the middle of the south wall, which is the gate of the temple. It is 4 rooms wide and 2 rooms deep, facing the base of the pagoda. The west gate is located in the middle of the west wall, with a "convex" shape in the plane. The gate is 7 wide and 2 deep.

survey

It is the site of an important Buddhist temple in Luoyang, the capital of the late Northern Wei Dynasty. Located in the ruins of Luoyang City of the Han Wei Dynasty, 15 kilometers east of Luoyang City, Henan Province, it is located in the southwest of the palace city of the Northern Wei Dynasty, covering an area of 90000 square meters. It is a Buddhist temple with a pagoda as the center, and is a place for the emperor and Empress Dowager to worship Buddha. The temple was built in 516, the first year of Xiping, Emperor Xiaoming of the Northern Wei Dynasty. It was built by the Hu family, Empress Dowager Ling. It was burned in 534, the third year of Yongxi. In the center of the Yongning Temple site, there are still remains of the tower foundation. It is a tall earthen platform, commonly known as Mu Ning temple or Mu TA temple. In the Qing Dynasty, it was mistakenly designated as a mausoleum and built a stele of "emperor Jing Mausoleum of Han Dynasty". The stele still exists today. The site was surveyed by the Institute of archaeology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1963 and excavated from 1979 to 1981.

Architectural Relics

After investigation, the temple wall is rectangular in plane, 305 meters from north to South and 260 meters from east to west. The tower foundation is located in the middle of the wall, and the plane is square. In the north of the pagoda, there is a large rammed earth platform foundation, which is more than 60 meters from east to west and has a construction area of more than 1300 square meters. According to the records of Luoyang Jialan Ji by Yang xuanzhi of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the hall is luxurious and gorgeous, which can be compared with the Taiji hall in the palace. Its two sides extend southward and connect the East and West eaves. In the south of the wall, there is another temple base, with a construction area of about 1000 square meters. In the middle of the south wall of the wall is the Mountain Gate of the temple, which is 7 rooms wide and 2 rooms deep, facing the pagoda. According to the record of Luoyang Jialan Ji, there were three storeys of the original gatehouse on the door, leading to three attic roads, and 20 feet to the ground. The East, West and North walls of the wall also have one gate each, which is directly opposite to the pagoda. The East and West gates each have two storeys of gatehouse. The north gate has no building, which is like the Wutou gate. The remains are unknown now. The gate, pagoda and main hall of Yongning Temple site are all located on the central axis, with the pagoda as the center and the hall behind the pagoda, which is a typical layout of early Buddhist temple buildings in China.

Pagoda base

Yongning Temple Pagoda is a wooden pagoda. According to the records of Luoyang Jialan Ji, it was originally a nine level pagoda and was raised 90 Zhang high (another 49 Zhang in shuijingzhu · Gushui). Today, only the base of the pagoda is left. The foundation of the tower is rammed, the plane is slightly square, divided into two layers. The lower base is 101 meters from east to west, 98 meters from north to south, with a height of more than 2.5 meters. The upper base is built in the middle of the lower base, with a square plane, a side length of 38.2 meters and a height of 2.2 meters. The four sides of the platform base are built with bluestone, and the four sides of the base are set with footpaths. Originally, stone railing should be placed around the base, but now only some stone railing components are scattered around it.

The wooden pagoda was built on the upper base, and there are 124 square foundation stones, which are arranged in a square grid pattern. In addition to the outer ring eaves column, only one stone is placed under each column, the other ring foundation stones are made of three layers of flat stones, which are wrapped in the rammed soil layer. The heaviest flat stone is carved with mortise to fix the column. In the fourth circle of foundation stones, a square solid body made of adobe is built, which is the central column of the wooden tower, with a side length of 20 meters and a residual height of 3.6 meters. There are five niches on the East, West and south sides, each of which is located between the two pillars, with a width of about 1.8 meters and a depth of 20-30 cm. The original statue in the niche is only a remnant. There is no niche on the north side of the central column, only a square column groove can be seen, which should have been the place where the wooden ladder was used to climb the tower.

The eaves and walls are painted with red and red on the outside and painted with color murals on the inside. The murals contain Buddhist themes such as bodhi tree, backlight and lotus. The base of the tower is paved with a thick lime hard surface. According to the vestiges of doors and windows and 10 eaves columns on each side, the outer eaves on the bottom floor of the wooden tower should be 9 wide on each side, which is consistent with the record of "three windows and six doors".

Remains of tower base

There are a large number of Buddhist clay statues, as well as stone carvings, tiles, tiles and other building materials. There are two kinds of clay statues of Buddhism: large and small. There are few large statues, including statues of Buddha and Bodhisattva. More than 300 small statues have been unearthed, most of which are "shadow sculptures" attached to the wall, including flying Apsaras, Bodhisattvas, bhikkhu and secular support figures. There are high crown and big shoes, high-class figures and their attendants, literati and warriors. These clay sculptures are exquisite in shape and vivid in shape, which surpasses the artistic level of clay sculptures in the grottoes of the same period. They are fine sculptures of the Northern Dynasties. Among the building materials, there are tiles decorated with lion patterns, and most of the tiles are decorated with patterns such as Baozhuang lotus pattern, variant lotus pattern and lotus Huasheng pattern.

Address: Luoyang City site of Han and Wei dynasties, dianzhuang Town, Yanshi City, Luoyang City

Longitude: 112.62421110272

Latitude: 34.71828033083

Chinese PinYin : Yong Ning Si Yi Zhi