Iron tower temple

Iron tower temple

Located in the east of Guhuai road in the center of Rencheng District, Jining City, Shandong Province, the iron tower temple, also known as chongjue temple, was built in the first year of the Northern Qi Dynasty (560) in the northern and Southern Dynasties. It is a thousand year old temple worthy of the name and has a history of more than 1400 years.

In 1988, the iron tower in the temple and the surrounding ancient buildings were announced as the national key cultural relics protection units by the State Council.

brief introduction

According to the literature, Chang, wife of Xu Yong'an, who lived in Chongning County in the fourth year of the Northern Song Dynasty, paid for the casting of Sakya Pagoda with iron in chongjue Temple (today's iron tower temple) in order to repay her husband's wish. When the tower was built, due to years of war, the tower was only built seven levels and stopped work. In the Ming Dynasty, local officials, gentry and the public all regarded the iron tower as "not perfect without a top", and compared it to "a great man with a sword, but not a crown". Therefore, in 1581, Gong Mian and Xiao Gong, the prefect of the river branch, proposed to raise funds and gather people to start construction. They were also cast with iron to raise the tower's height by two levels, and the top of the tower was crowned with a gold-plated copper gate.

There are 9 layers of cast iron tower body, including 11 layers of tower base. The height is 23.8 meters. It is octagonal, decreasing layer by layer from bottom to top. Under the sun, the golden top of the tower, black tower body, purple light spit Hui. The flat seats, fences, cornices and the glittering Sky Gate with carved brackets are exquisite in design and unique in shape. They stand tall and magnificent. The lotus shaped base is made of copper and tightly connected with the top of the tower to form the tower brake. The inscriptions of the tower are respectively cast on the southeast and northeast walls of the first tower. The base of the tower is 1.9 meters deep, and a west facing tower room is set at the base of the tower, which is made of brick and imitated wood. There is a thousand hands and thousand eyes Buddha of the great mercy Avalokitesvara in the room, and the three sides of the Buddha seat are engraved with Buddhist myths, sermons, flying Apsaras and other stories.

Architectural features

The tower temple faces south from the north, with a rectangular plane, covering an area of nearly 17 mu, and is composed of three roads: left, middle and right. The original temple gate, pantry, sutra Pavilion, Drum Tower and other buildings have been destroyed in the vicissitudes of time, but there are still thousands of years old pagodas still towering and tall, the main hall, the sound tower and so on are still magnificent, people vaguely want to see the extraordinary momentum and grandeur of that year.

The existing main hall is the building of the early Ming Dynasty. The word "Daxiong" in Buddhist language means boundless power. The hall is a single-layer cornice building with five Ying Xie mountain. It is 19.5 meters wide, 14.8 meters deep and 12.6 meters high. It has a yellow glazed tile roof. In the middle of the roof is a brick carving of a unicorn sending treasure, and the roof is decorated with auspicious animals such as Greyhound, seagull and sea dog. In ancient China, when the houses were very low, such a huge building as the main hall was very rare in urban and rural areas. In the meantime, people suddenly feel their own insignificance, thus producing a kind of solemn and sacred, solemn awe, a feeling of incomparable worship and belief to the Buddha, and a deep belief in the conversion to the Buddha.

Related information

Buddhism pays attention to idolatry. In China, all kinds of statues are placed in temples, big or small, for worshiping and worshiping by believers. The original statues in the main hall of the iron tower temple are the western three saints and the eighteen Arhats. The so-called three saints in the West refer to Amitabha, the Buddha worshipped by the Pure Land Sect of Buddhism, and the two Bodhisattvas, Guanyin and dashizhi, who are the idols worshipped by the Buddhists. Luohan is a disciple of the Buddha and an eminent monk who cultivated Luohanguo. The most famous Luohan in Buddhism are JIAYE and Ananda who spread the mantle of the Buddha.

It can be imagined that for more than a thousand years since the northern and Southern Dynasties, the iron tower temple, like other temples, has been filled with the sound of Buddhist bells, cigarette smoke, and the name of Buddha. Under the solemn and sacred statue of Buddha, the atmosphere is solemn and depressing. Whether monks in cassocks or ordinary people struggling in the boundless sea of bitterness like ants, we are all devout at the feet of the Buddha, looking for spiritual sustenance and the final destination of the soul

The cultural relics department of Jining City plans to restore the original Drum Tower, Mountain Gate and other buildings on the basis of protecting the existing ancient buildings of the iron tower temple, so as to integrate them with the original buildings, form a magnificent scene with row upon row of buildings, continuous clouds of pavilions, and become a highlight in the construction of Jining cultural city and an important tourist attraction in the urban area.

Address: North of iron tower temple road, Shizhong District, Jining City, Shandong Province

Longitude: 116.58206176758

Latitude: 35.410343170166

Ticket information: free.

Chinese PinYin : Tie Ta Si