Kejia Temple

Kejia Temple

Kejia temple, Sakya Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism. It is located in Kejia village, Pulan County, Ali Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region. Kejia means "settle down" in Tibetan. It was founded by Renqin sangbu, a great translator in 1996.

Kejia village is built with the temple as the center, with an east-west layout. According to records, first there was Kejia temple, then there was Kejia village, which got its name from the temple.

The origin of history

Kejia temple is a big temple in Pulan county with a long history and enjoys a high reputation in the local area. Every year, believers from Zada, Gar and other counties in Ali Region and Nepal come to worship. During the "Cultural Revolution", temple cultural relics and buildings were seriously damaged, some buildings were destroyed, and statues and murals were seriously damaged.

Since the 1980s, the ancient buildings have been repaired one after another, such as manilacan. On June 25, 2001, as an ancient building in 996, Kejia temple was listed as a national key cultural relic protection unit by the State Council.

Layout structure

The main buildings of Kejia temple are juekang hall and Baizhu hall, which are arranged in "L" shape. Juekang is located in the south of the temple, facing north; Baizhu hall is located in the west of the temple, facing east.

In front of the two halls, there is a square with little space. In the middle of the square, there are wells, tall tachins and censers. On the walls around the square, wall corridors and mani tubes are built. It is a gathering place for religious activities and folk celebrations. There are also detours around the temple buildings.

Folklore

Juekang, the hall of Sakyamuni, is a place where monks gather to chant sutras. Juekang is composed of three parts: corridor courtyard, porch and hall body. The corridor courtyard and porch are small in size, while the hall is large in size. Juekang's exterior walls are decorated with red, and the top is decorated with bianma grass. The appearance of the whole hall is harmonious and solemn. ① Corridor courtyard. Located in the southernmost part of juekang, it was added in the late 1980s. The corridor courtyard is surrounded by the back built corridor and the hall porch. A door is set in the middle of the wall on the north side of the corridor courtyard, and the bucket arches are suspended on both sides of the door, forming a protruding eaves above the door. This kind of architectural form is a common technique in Wei Zang area. There are 6 inner corridors on both sides of the East and west sides of the hospital and on both sides of the door, under which there are hidden beds and card mats for people to rest. ② The porch. It is composed of the open corridor outside the door and the hall inside the door. The columns, joists and beams of the open corridor are painted in blue-green. There are no furnishings in the bar hall. ③ Hall body. The plane is in the shape of "Ya", which represents the mandala of Tantric school. The left and right sides are symmetrical along the north-south axis, and the front and back are asymmetric. The North-South length is 30.5 meters, and the East-West width is 21.9 meters. The main gate of the hall is set in the middle of the north wall of the hall, with a height of 3 meters and a width of 2.3 meters. The gate is a 4-leaf panel door with door title, door ring, copper leaf and other decorations. The entrance gate is a "convex" shaped Sutra hall, 25 meters long from north to South and 8.4 meters wide from east to west. The fan wall is in the shape of "U" and forms a turning channel with the three side walls. Inside the fan wall, there are three statues on the Buddha platform, all standing, crowned and decorated with gold. Murals are painted on the fan walls on both sides of the hall, and the walls on both sides of the hall are full of bookcases leading to the roof. The open-air steps on the east side can reach two floors. The two-story house is roughly a courtyard layout, with an open-air courtyard in the center and a podium around. Above the skylight on the ground floor is a small room with 2 deep rooms and 3 wide rooms. On the north side and East and west sides of the second floor, there are long and narrow chambers connected with six large rooms in the middle, and three chambers connected with the open corridor at the south end. In terms of layout, the second floor is the place for listening to and debating scriptures.

The scale

The name of Baizhu hall is "gagalakang" in Tibetan. The Baizhu hall is a large complex building composed of many halls and living rooms. According to records, Baizhu hall is the first hall built in Kejia temple. The remains of components and murals in the hall can still see the traces of early buildings, but the hall was rebuilt more in the later period. The hall has been less used, only the second floor monk's house and kitchen are still in use, and the main gathering and Sutra chanting places have been moved to juekang hall. Baizhu hall is an important building of Kejia temple, which is the main hall of the temple. The exterior wall of Baizhu hall is brick red, and the upper part is decorated with heavy bianma grass. The plan of the hall is in the shape of "Ya", which is symmetrical along the east-west axis. The hall is 33.5 meters wide from north to South and 41.9 meters long from east to west.

The layout of the first floor is the early Central Hall ring in the form of small hall. ① The main hall gate. The entrance of the gate is 3.6 meters high and 3.48 meters wide; the entrance surrounded by the door frame and threshold is 2.23 meters high and 1.59 meters wide. The door frame and lintel are exquisitely carved and complex in structure. They are highly valuable architectural works of art. The door frame and lintel are decorated with multi-layer decoration, and the upper part is carved with flowers and plants, animals and birds, Buddha statues, character stories, Buddhist niche buildings, etc.

The sculpture forms of door frames and lintels, especially the column and pattern patterns of the lion's face and various shrines, reflect the appearance of niches or caves and imitate the Buddhist architecture of India or Nepal. According to historical records, during the later period of Tibetan Buddhism, when many monks of Ali went to India and Nepal to study, they brought many local craftsmen to build temples in Ali. This gate was the product of the exchange at that time. ② The main hall on the ground floor. In the center of Baizhu hall, there are 7 columns in east-west direction and 4 columns in north-south direction, with a total of 28 columns. The interior is 19.8 meters long in east-west direction and 13.2 meters wide in south-north direction. The interior is a rubble floor, and there is no original Buddha statue in the hall. There are murals on the wall behind the skylight, with the theme of Sakyamuni and his two disciples, arhat and two eminent monks.

Other murals in the central hall were redrawn in the 1980s. ③ South Hall. The Tibetan name "qiaoju LAKANG" is located at the back waist of the central hall and opens to the north. The interior is 9.5m wide and 7.6m deep. There are 3 north-south columns, 4 East-West columns and 12 common columns. There are altar under the east wall and south wall of the hall. There are frescoes on the wall of the hall, which are mainly painted with Zen seal, sitting Buddha, Bodhisattva and many Buddhists, surrounded by small statues. There are murals on the wall in the northwest corner of the hall. The style of murals is very similar to the ruins of the capital of the Guge Kingdom and the Tuolin temple.

④ North Hall. The Tibetan name is sangjilakan. It is symmetrically arranged at the back of the north side of the central hall with the South Hall. The space scale is basically the same as that of the South Hall. There is a platform under the north wall of the hall, and there is no mural in the hall.

Temple relics

Kejia temple is built according to the terrain, close to mountains and rivers, facing north from south, surrounded by mountains from north to south. The whole temple is towering, with various Scripture halls, monks' houses and relic towers set off against each other. The architectural art style of the temple is unique, and the construction technology is excellent, but it has been partially damaged; the original collection of more than 100 volumes of scriptures in the temple, only 6 volumes of authentic works are left; the frescoes in the temple are well preserved, and the style is distinctive and unique, all of which are treasures of a century.

In November 2009, the first phase of the maintenance and protection project of alikejia temple in Tibet with a total investment of 15 million yuan was completed recently. The second phase of the project will focus on the protection of monasteries and dwellings around the Kejia temple, striving to make the Kejia temple and Kejia village present to the world as a cultural whole, said cirenzasi, director of the Cultural Bureau of Ali Region in Tibet.

Legend of monks

Renqin sangbu (959-1055) was born in naghu village of wangre in Guge

It is said that when he was two years old, he could recite the mantra of Sanskrit and paint on the ground. He is considered to be the reincarnation of "Banzhida". When he grew up, he was selected by King yixiwo of Guge and sent to India to study Buddhism with 21 other Guge youths. Most of them could not adapt to the climate and living conditions in India, and died in foreign lands one after another. Only Renqin Sambu and another young man named Leba xirao learned Buddhism and returned to their hometown.

In his life, he traveled to India and Tibet three times, translating and revising 17 Buddhist classics, 33 treatises and 108 esoteric classics. They are included in the Tibetan scriptures of ganzhur and danzhur. People call his later version "Xinmi" and his earlier version "Jiumi". He also invited a group of artists from Kashmir who are proficient in Buddhist painting, sculpture and architecture, and established the earliest Buddhist temples in Guge. In the history of Tibetan Buddhism, Renqin sangbu was regarded as one of the founders of Buddhism in the later Hongqi period.

Buddhist tradition

Yixiwo, king of Guge, once ordered zunzhuseng Ge to lead more than 100 servants to Chaojie temple to formally welcome adixia, but this mission was not completed. Jiangquwo, the successor of the king, was not disheartened. In 1037, he once again sent natuo translator to lead five child servants, carrying 700 taels of pure gold into Chaojie temple to study and discuss, and then welcomed them. He will also visit adixia with Zunzhu Seng Ge in the temple, and have a long talk with him about the current situation of Tibetan Buddhism.

Adixia finally entered Tibet in 1042 with the support of the Nepalese King, ministers, nobles and translators from Tibet. The first stop was Kejia temple. Since then, the venerable has been practicing Buddhism in Tibet and never returned to his hometown.

Basan, the director of the temple management committee, is a legend. He was originally a monk of the Kejia temple. At the beginning of the cultural revolution, he was afraid that the treasures in the temple would be destroyed. He took more than ten cultural relics with him and went to Nepal for farming. No matter how hard his life was, he never sold them. Sixteen years later, hearing that Tibet had implemented its religious policy, he returned home with his treasures, allowing the Buddhists to return to their places. This merit made him the director of the Temple Management Committee of Kejia temple, a deputy to the Sixth National People's Congress of the autonomous region, and a member of the Buddhist Association of the autonomous region.

folk culture

Buddhist events in Kejia Temple

On June 4 of the Tibetan calendar, a Buddhist activity of the master of Kejia temple was held in the southernmost part of Pulan county. Kejia temple and Tuolin temple are equally famous ancient temples. Due to their influence in Ali and neighboring Nepalese Buddhist circles, this time of year

Chinese PinYin : Ke Jia Si