Fengxian Temple

Fengxian Temple

Fengxian Temple, located in Jingliang North Street, Beihai street, Jiyuan City, Henan Province, China, is one of the existing important ancient buildings in Jiyuan City. It is also called "Jingliang Temple" because the main building of Sanqing hall is made of jingwood beams. In 2001, it was listed as the fifth batch of national key cultural relics protection units.

Fengxian Temple was first built in 685, the first year of chuigong in Tang Dynasty. Two Lu Zhenren (Lu Xiyan, Lu Heguang) in Tang Dynasty and he Lanqi in Song Dynasty practiced Taoism here. There are ten existing buildings in Jin, Ming and Qing Dynasties. The overall building faces south, 90.5 meters long and 45.5 meters wide.

Fengxian Temple, the gate was built in the Qing Dynasty, three wide, two deep, single eaves hanging peak. The Jade Emperor hall was built in the Ming Dynasty, with three wide faces, four deep rafters and a single eaves hanging on the top of the mountain. Sanqing hall was built in the 24th year of jindading (1184). It has five rooms in width, seven rafters in depth and a single eaves hanging on the top of the mountain. It is a typical building with reduced columns.

Historical evolution

Fengxian Temple was built in 685 A.D. in the first year of chuigong in Tang Dynasty. Its original name is Fengxian Temple, which means worshiping ancestors. Fengxian Temple has a lot of high Taoism in the past dynasties. In Tang Dynasty, two Lu people (Lu Xiyan, Lu Heguang) practiced Taoism here.

In the Northern Song Dynasty, he lanqizhen, a famous Taoist, was summoned by Emperor Zhenzong of the Song Dynasty and granted the title of "master Zongzhen" and was exempted from the land tax of Fengxian Temple. He lanqizhen carried out large-scale renovation and expansion of Fengxian Temple. In the 24th year of Jin Dading (1184 AD), Sanqing hall was rebuilt. In the early Yuan Dynasty, Taoist Chongning Baoguang master Wei Zhiyin presided over Fengxian Temple and rebuilt Yuhuang hall and Sanguan hall.

In 1445 A.D., the abbot Han Songyan rebuilt the lecture hall.

Layout structure

In 1752 A.D., the Sanguan hall was rebuilt, with four gates and sixteen rooms. The existing Fengxian Temple faces south from the north. Its overall layout is rectangular, 90.5 meters long from north to South and 45.5 meters wide from east to west. It has two courtyards and ten ancient buildings of Jin, Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Fengxian Temple, followed by Shanmen, Yuhuang hall, Sanqing hall, on both sides of the wing room and side hall. The main building Sanqing hall was rebuilt in the 24th year of jindading (1184 A.D.), which is a typical representative of the architecture of Jin Dynasty in China. It has high historical, scientific and artistic value. Liu Dunzhen, a famous ancient architecture expert in China, highly praised the hall as "bold and unconstrained in technique and peculiar in thinking". There are also more than 20 pieces of precious cultural relics in the temple, such as the stone statue stele of taishanglaojun in Tang Dynasty, the poems of emperor Zhangsheng in Northern Song Dynasty and the stele of weigongdaoxing in Yuan Dynasty.

Cultural relics protection

In June 2001, Fengxian Temple was announced by the State Council as a national key cultural relics protection unit.

Architectural features

The ancient architecture from Jin Dynasty to Qing Dynasty is located in sanzhuang village, Beihai office, Jiyuan City, Henan Province. It was founded in the first year of Tang Dynasty (685 AD). It is more than 1300 years ago. Because there is a Jingmu beam in the hall, it is commonly known as Jingliang Temple. Originally, there were many buildings, covering an area of more than 60 mu. Due to various reasons, there are only four auxiliary halls, namely, the mountain gate, the Jade Emperor hall, the Sanqing hall, the stele Pavilion, and the East and west side halls, forming a two-way courtyard with a north-south direction. Although it is not large, it has a reasonable layout, compact structure, high in the north and low in the south, with a high price of cultural relics. In 2001, it was announced as a national cultural relics protection unit by the State Council.

Main relics

There are three mountain gates, relics of the Qing Dynasty, a middle corridor, and a vertical flower gate on each side. It is composed of the main gate and the eastern and Western ye gates. It is a single eaves overhanging building rebuilt in the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. The main facade is three rooms wide and four rafters deep. Two Yemen, East Gate forehead regular script "Fu District", West Gate forehead regular script "Ling Jing". On both sides of the main gate, there are stone lions holding drums, which are relics of the Ming Dynasty.

The surface is wide and the depth is deep

The Jade Emperor hall, with three wide faces and four deep rafters, is a single eaves wooden structure in the Ming Dynasty. The front eaves column is a small octagonal stone column with side legs and rising columns, which is a typical feature of architecture in Ming Dynasty. The glazed tiles on the main ridge of the top of the hall are piled with flowers, dragons and phoenixes. After hundreds of years, they are still colorful and lifelike. The Ming Dynasty color paintings on the beams and Dougong in the hall can be seen.

Stone statue of Laojun

The Jade Emperor was worshipped in the Jade Emperor hall. There is a stele Pavilion on the stele. The height of the stele is 3 meters, the width is 1.1 meters, and the thickness is 0.33 meters. Six dragon plates are carved on the forehead. The top looks like a semicircle. There are three Taoist statues in the middle. In the middle, Lao Tzu sits on the lotus plate, and there are two waiters on each side. The inscriptions are full of writing, and the main idea is: "preach the past and the present, praise the flourishing age of the Tang Dynasty, have peace in all directions, and respect Lao Tzu.".

Li Shen wrote an article, Juqu Zhilie wrote a book, and Zhao Wensu engraved it. More than 200 people with the surname of Li, who lived in Luoyang, contributed to the establishment of Fengxian Temple. Ye Changchi, an epigraphist in Qing Dynasty, commented on the tablet in Yu Shi: it is the most famous Taoist tablet in Tang Dynasty for its magnificent articles, elegant calligraphy and symmetrical body.

Sanqing Hall

Sanqing hall, the main hall of Fengxian Temple, is as famous as the Sansheng Hall of Shanhua temple in Datong, Shanxi Province. It is the most important of the five existing wooden buildings of Jin Dynasty in Henan Province, and also one of the important single wooden buildings of Jin Dynasty in China. The hall was rebuilt in the 24th year of jindading (1184 A.D.), with five rooms in width, seven rafters in depth, and a single eaves hanging from the mountain. The plane layout is made of reduced columns, with only two back gold columns supporting the roof. It is a typical work of reduced column building in China, which is rare. In 1936, when Liu Dunzhen, a famous expert of ancient architecture in China, came to Fengxian Temple for investigation, he commented that the hall was "bold and unconstrained in technique and strange in thinking".

Sanqing hall is one of the three oldest wooden buildings in Henan Province. It has five rooms in width, seven rafters in depth, a large arch on the big stone column, and a single eaves hanging from the mountain. It has the highest purity and was built by the Taoist he lanqizhen.

Eight columns

Unique structure: the main hall of the three Qing Dynasty was built with a large proportion of reduced columns, which is rare in the world. "Reducing columns" is a special way to increase the interior space in ancient buildings. It is a way to reduce some gold columns in the column grid plane of ancient buildings. By reducing columns, the interior space is spacious. Sanqing hall is five rooms wide and three rooms deep. Originally, it should have eight columns. However, the builders showed their ingenuity by using only two back gold columns, so that most of the weight of the roof is concentrated on two beams and two columns, which is amazing.

Rare materials: in the annals of Jiyuan county during the reign of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, it is said that the hall is "made of Jing wood and persimmon wood as beams, mulberry wood and jujube wood as columns, all of which are surrounded by two or three walls and about two Zhang long.". Jingmu, Shimu, Zaomu and Sangmu are homonymous for "today, death, early and funeral", which is very unlucky. The hall of the three Qing Dynasty is unusual. It is rare to use these four kinds of wood as pillars. It is said that the four beams and pillars were found by he lanqizhen, the abbot of Fengxian Temple in the Northern Song Dynasty, who traveled all over Jiyuan. The Qing Dynasty wooden plate hanging on the column records the origin of four pieces of wood. The names of Jingwang, Zaolin, Shibing and sangyuhe are still used in our city.

Expert evaluation

Liang Sicheng, an expert in Chinese ancient architecture, commented: "bold and unconstrained in technique and peculiar in thinking.".

1. Jingmu, persimmon beam, jujube, mulberry column, wood strange, huge. Jingmuliang, 9.1 meters long and 0.83 meters in diameter, comes from Jingwang village, Sili Township, 8 li to the north; zaomuzhu, 7.1 meters high and 0.76 cm in diameter, comes from Zaolin village, Chengliu Town, 18 Li to the West; sangmuzhu, 7.1 meters high and 0.7 meters in diameter, comes from sangyuhe village, 20 Li to the South; shimuliang, 9.1 meters long and 0.76 meters in diameter, comes from Shibin village, kejing Township, 8 li to the north. Now the four objects are all in the county annals and inscriptions, and the wood producing areas have been changed into place names because of the strange size of the trees.

2. The design is scientific and the column reduction method is adopted. The main hall should be supported by 8 columns, which can take the structure of crossing beams, minus 6 columns, only 2 columns. It can be said that the idea is wonderful, bold and innovative.

3. We should emancipate our minds. The homonym of these four woods is not auspicious, which means "today, death, early, and mourning". It is taboo to use them in folk customs. However, he Lanqi really doesn't care about these. As long as he is a pillar, he will cut and reuse them. This kind of thought of using materials regardless of one pattern is very valuable in feudal society!

4. It is simple to make, wood is not processed and modified, it can be used immediately after peeling, and it can save time and effort by retaining the original sample of logs, which shows the heroic style of the Mongolian nation at that time.

Inscription culture

On the wall in front of Sanqing hall is a stele engraved with a picture of Helan Qizhen riding a donkey to Tokyo, as well as the inscription of "song Zhenzong's poem giving Helan Qizhen". The poem says: "Xuanyuan left five thousand words in his teaching, which is hard to understand in a trance. The number of chapters into the chapter reached the most reasonable, when chanting, chanting Road Leisure

Folk legend has it that after the collapse of Xihu temple in Xiguan, Jiyuan, helanqi had a high level of Taoism, which was deeper than Laozhuang's theory. He was good at opening up valleys and taking in. He could enlighten gold and build up Fengxian Temple.

When transporting construction materials, no horse was seen, but the horse was panting and sweating. It was widely spread among the people. After hearing the news, song Zhenzong called Helan Qizhen to the capital city to perform in public. Helan Qizhen told the truth: "it's a fake skill of the alchemist, not enough for your majesty."

Great significance

Song Zhenzong was deeply impressed by he lanqizhen's honesty. He praised his words and was honored as "master Zongzhen" with more respect. He gave a poem to him, free of his view of Tian Fu. On both sides of the courtyard are the steles of "Princess Yuzhen's acceptance of Daoling altar xiangyingji" written by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty, the sarcophagus of Li Zongde of Ming Dynasty and the engraving of twenty-four filial piety pictures, and three famous calligraphers of Qing Dynasty

Chinese PinYin : Feng Xian Guan