Brief introduction to the altar of Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou, Fujian?

Kaiyuan Temple, located in Quanzhou, Fujian, was built in 686, the second year of the Tang Dynasty. It has a history of 1300 years. According to legend, the original site of Kaiyuan Temple was a big mulberry garden run by Huang Shougong, a rich man in the Tang Dynasty. One night, Huang Shougong dreamed that a monk begged him to build a temple. I woke up in three days, and all the mulberry trees in the garden were out of Bai Lianhua. Huang informed the local magistrate of this idea, and the magistrate asked the court to send Kuang Hu monk to Quanzhou to preside over the construction of the temple and named it "Lotus Dojo". In the first year of Tang Changshou (692), it was renamed Xingjiao Temple. In the first year of Shenlong (705), it was renamed "longxing temple". In the 26th year of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty (738), it was changed to the present "Kaiyuan Temple". During the Song Dynasty, Kaiyuan Temple reached its peak, with 120 branches. From the Yuan Dynasty to the 22nd year of the Yuan Dynasty (1285), 120 branch was named "manjuji in the Grand Kaiyuan", and the next 40 years were its heyday. In the following hundreds of years, Kaiyuan Temple experienced vicissitudes and ups and downs.

After 1949, the government re-protected Kaiyuan Temple and allocated funds for its renovation. 1962, the provincial people's government established it as a provincial key cultural relics protection unit. During the "Cultural Revolution", Secretary Wang Jinsheng, who was in charge of the work of the Municipal Party Committee at that time, strengthened protection and was not damaged. 1980, kaiyuan temple was listed as a national cultural relics protection unit. From 65438 to 0985, overseas Chinese monks in Singapore donated huge sums of money to carry out comprehensive repairs, which made this Millennium temple glow again.

Kaiyuan Temple has magnificent architecture and unique scenery. The whole temple is 200 meters long from north to south and 300 meters wide from east to west, covering an area of 78000 square meters. The main buildings are Tianwang Temple, Ursa Major Hall, Tan Jie, Tibetan Sutra Pavilion, Amphibian Temple, Tan Yue Temple, Zhunti Zen Forest, etc. There are more than 500 houses with grand scale, neat layout and magnificent style. According to legend, at the beginning of the construction of Daxiong Hall, there was always a feeling of "Ziyun covering the land", so it was called "Ziyun Hall". The main hall is a double-eaves, mountain-resting building in Ming Dynasty, with nine rooms wide, eight rooms deep, about 20 meters high and 88 stone pillars, so it is also called "Baizhu Hall".

There are many cultural relics in the temple. Quanzhou Overseas Traffic History Museum is located on the east side of the temple. Kuang Hu, a famous monk in the Tang Dynasty, Shi Hongze in the Five Dynasties, Shi in the Song Dynasty and modern masters all gave lectures in the temple. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, monks from India, western regions and other places frequently lived in this temple, making it famous all over the world. There is a long corridor behind Tianwang Temple, which lists various forms of stone buildings, small stone pagodas, silk stoves and so on built after the Song Dynasty. Twenty-four musicians flying with their wings are engraved on the stigma of the Hall of Great Heroes, which is rare in ancient buildings in China. There are 172 blue stone reliefs of lion's face carved on the platform of Mount Sumi in front of the main hall, and two Brahmanism blue stone pillars in the back corridor of the main hall are engraved with fairy tales spread in India and Ceylon.

The manna ring altar in Kaiyuan Temple, the ring altar in Jietai Temple in Beijing and the ring altar in Zhaoqing Temple in Hangzhou are collectively called the three ring altars in China. The altar is divided into five layers, which are for Rushana, Sakyamuni, Amitabha, Avalokitesvara with a thousand hands and a thousand eyes, King Kong and so on. , and there are 64 ring tablets.

There are more than 10,000 volumes of Tibetan scriptures in the Tibetan Classics Pavilion, including more than 20 volumes of Tibetan scriptures in the Song Dynasty, which is a treasure on earth. There is the Pilushena Buddha in the temple with a height of 1.8 meters, which is a national first-class cultural relic and contains Buddhist cultural relics. It was collected by the monk Wu Chao in 897 AD. The ancient clock showroom has preserved more than ten bronze and iron clocks of past dynasties.

Miao Lian, the current abbot of Kaiyuan Temple, is from Shanghai and a disciple of Master Hongyi, who is nearly 100 years old. He is currently a prison warden from Quanzhou, Fujian. Historical heritage is located in Chengxi Street, Quanzhou, which is the largest Buddhist temple in Fujian Province. 1982 in March, the State Council was announced as the second batch of national key cultural relics protection units.

Founded in the second year of the Tang Dynasty (686), it is also known as Ziyun Temple. "Named after the glory of Ziyun" (Records of Kaiyuan Temple in Wenling). It turned out to be a section of Qili Sangyuan, an elder of Huang Shougong (see Huang Shougong's List of Quanzhou People), and Master Kuang Hu asked him to build a temple. Because there is Shawn Ku in the garden and the myth of "Sangkai Bailian", it was originally named Lotus Dojo. It is also said that the dream-keeper monk wants to turn his house into a temple, saying: Just wait for the mulberry tree to have lotus flowers. In a few days, the mulberry trees are full of lotus flowers and ready to give up being a temple. It was once called Lotus Temple, Xingjiao Temple and longxing temple, and was renamed Kaiyuan Temple in the 26th year of Xuanzong Kaiyuan (738).

During the middle Tang Dynasty (847-860), Zhiliang (a shirtless monk) was stationed in the East Court of Xikaiyuan Temple to spread Buddhism. (See "Quanzhou People Directory Zhiliang")

In November of the fourth year of the Tang Dynasty (897), Wang Shenluan (see Wang Shenluan in Quanzhou) rebuilt Kaiyuan Temple, and the Buddhist Temple, Bell Tower and Lou Jing were completed one after another. Huang Tao wrote a composition to discipline his affairs (see Huang Tao on the list of people in Quanzhou).

According to "Half Records of Quanzhou Prefecture", in the Five Dynasties, Wang "sent an official to measure the soil with a bow and set it as the third class. With fertile land, people and those who have become narrow, such as He Chen, have entered the temple ... so the rice produced by the temple field is more important than private industry. " Wang Yanbin founded the Thousand-Buddha Temple in Kaiyuan Temple, Quanzhou, and settled down for a feast. In the year of Tang Tianfu (90 1), Zhu, a military commander, was sentenced to build an underground storage yard and set up a temple to receive monks. Wang Yanbin ruled the spring, overhauled the merits, and built great buildings. He built Yinqing Courtyard, Pavilion, Bathroom Courtyard, Sizhou Courtyard, Hekou Courtyard, Fahua Courtyard, Luohan Pavilion, Qianfo Temple Courtyard, Jinzi Courtyard and so on for foreign monks in Kaiyuan Temple. In the year of recovery, the Outer White House and the Upper House were created. In addition, in Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou, Ci 'en Courtyard, Shenfu Courtyard, Tinglou Courtyard and Newspaper Court were established, and monks were invited to live here. In the second year (915-921), our messenger of the times, Chen, invited the monk to give a lecture on the Classic of Business and Life. In the third year of the late Tang Dynasty (928), Chen Jingtong was trained to cast gold Buddha statues. In the first year of Changxing in the late Tang Dynasty (930), Wang Yanbin's successor, Wang Jichong, was appointed as the secretariat of Quanzhou, founded a secluded courtyard and became the abbot of Yanchan Monk. In the second year of Tianfu at the end of Jin Dynasty (937), the Sixth Ancestor East Courtyard was founded by our envoy, and monks were invited to live in Yueju. Bao Dajian in the Southern Tang Dynasty, the secretariat of Dongsi 'an in Zhangzhou. His wife led the whole army and built Yin Qi Temple in Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou, in order to recommend the dead to pray. In addition, a stone statue carved by Liang Kaiping for three years (909) was found on the hillside of Wumo Mountain near Jueshan, Fashibao Mountain outside Tumen, Quanzhou. The stone statue is 65,438+070 cm high and stands upright, barefoot on the lotus. It is still preserved in Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou.

Qing Qianlong's Annals of Quanzhou: Kaiyuan Temple "experienced five dynasties to the Song Dynasty, and created a hundred branches (8 people were governed together for 2 17, and Kaiyuan Temple Annals were 1 17)". Its area is adjacent to the main road of West Street in the south, behind the Great Temple in the north, Taikui Lane in the east and Xiaogan Lane in the west. The former fields are distributed in Jinjiang, Nan 'an, Hui 'an, Tongan, Anxi, Yongchun, Xianyou, Putian, Longxi, Changtai and other counties.

In the 22nd year of the Yuan Dynasty (1285), Yuan Yougong made Liu Jianyi say in Pingzhang that the Kaiyuan Temple 120 Courtyard in Quanzhou was a temple, and it was given the title of "Great Kaiyuan manjuji", and the monks of the temple "always ate ten thousand fingers". It also built the Dharma Hall and the Bedroom Hall, and invited the abbot of Miao En Zen Master, which was the first time to cut the mountain. In the 30th year of Yuan Dynasty, there were Zen Hall, Shuanggui Hall, Tan Yue Hall, THE TEMPLE OF JIALAN Hall and Zushi Hall. In the sixth year of Yanyou (13 19), the monk Qi Zu followed the abbot of manjuji, who lived here for forty years. It can be seen that the scale of Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou in Yuan Dynasty was very large.

In the thirty-first year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1398), the court of the Ming Dynasty issued a decree, appointing monk Ying Zheng (see Quanzhou People's List Ying Zheng) as the abbot of Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou, and said, "Take him as the abbot. It is difficult to be an abbot now. Good will bully you, and evil will slander you. But the pure heart has long been clean. Respect this. " It is embodied in "opening a court session and practicing the law, and all peoples will be United", "establishing a court to build a manna altar" and repairing everything. During the reign of Chenghua and Hongzhi (1465- 1505), there was a phenomenon in Kaiyuan Temple: "The Zen wind is not over, clouds and smoke are scattered everywhere, and the jungle law is coming." . Temple property was seized by friends. "Because the temple can't protect the old territory, nine times out of ten."

In the middle and late Ming dynasty, the Japanese pirates became increasingly rampant, and Quanzhou was the first to bear the brunt. The Ming army moved to Quanzhou and stationed in the Buddhist temple. Later, due to the urgent demand of gunpowder artisans and weapons artisans for workshops, Kaiyuan Temple and Chengtian Temple became workshops of "two artisans of nitrate smelting", and "a hundred furnaces cover clouds and the earth covers mountains". Every Buddha's birthday, local officials come to the temple to pay homage, so they have to "squat down next to the dust under the stove and get through it." Monks and local officials have no choice but to occupy Buddhist temples at will on the grounds of preventing Japanese pirates.

In the 22nd year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty (1594), monks, Tong Quan, Zhao Yongzan and others in Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou requested the deputy envoy of Yunnan (grandson of Huang Shougong who built Kaiyuan Temple in the Tang Dynasty) to report to the observer Yang, demanding that the military craftsmen and their families be expelled from the temple. Yang was "resolute and arbitrary" and ordered the expulsion. In the following 50 years, Kaiyuan Temple was preserved after many renovations by local officials and monks. However, compared with the scale of the Tang and Five Dynasties 120 branch, it "only exists between eleven and a thousand".

Wanli's "Quanzhou Fuzhi" records that during the Jiajing period, the soldiers were in a state of chaos and financial shortage, and they stepped up their search for temples. "If there are monks in the temple, burn four monks and pay six." The original garden of Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou is 273 hectares, 9 1 mu. However, due to the decline of temples in the Ming Dynasty, in order to maintain the temple plan, temple fields were sold, sometimes expropriated by the government, sometimes occupied by large families, and the number of temple fields decreased. The Ming government had no financial resources, and during Jiajing period, it ordered the collection of six (government) and four (temple) taxes on temple fields. During the Wanli period, eight (political) and two (temple) points were stipulated. Because of the excessive stripping, monks have filed lawsuits, while the government thinks that "traitors seek the ultimate disaster" and "the arrest system is reasonable, and the vine attracts Julian." By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the fields of Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou were only 26 hectares and 86 mu, less than one tenth of the original.

In the early years of Kangxi in Qing Dynasty, monk Shen Wei founded Zhunti Zen Forest on the east side of Kaiyuan Temple to worship Guanyin and spread Tiantai Sect. The monk rebuilt the manna ring altar for Lin. In the ten years of Qianlong (1745) and Jiaqing (1805), Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou was rebuilt twice.

One tenth or two of the existing original scale, with an area of more than 100 mu. The temple is spacious and magnificent, and the north-south central axis is (1) "Ziyunping". (2) The entrance of the mountain is the Temple of the King, and there is a couplet written by Zhu Heshu, "This place is called the Buddhist country in ancient times, and the streets are full of saints". Bait and bait. (3) Daxiong Hall. (4) manna ring altar. (5) the sutra depository.

There is a long corridor in the hatchback of the temple. There are Tan Yue Temple, Zhunti Temple (commonly known as Xiaokaiyuan) and Dongbi Temple on the east side, and Gongde Temple and Zunshengyuan Temple (also known as Amiyuan Temple) on the west side, which were later changed into amphibious temples, and are now converted into Master Hongyi Memorial Hall. On the outside of the West Corridor, there is an ancient mulberry tree planted in the Tang Dynasty, which is still flourishing. According to legend, Huang Shougong is a mulberry tree that "opens white lotus". There are East Tower and West Tower on the lawn outside the two corridors.

From the Ziyun screen to the city wall, through the gate of Tianwang Hall, to the hero hall with a hundred columns structure, to the Ganlu Ring altar, and then to the Tibetan Scripture Pavilion, a complete ancient architecture system has been formed. Its flying musician's bucket arch, Bilu lotus wood carving, Sakyamuni Damocle clay sculpture, Zhenuo Renshou Twin Towers and Sumitomo stone carving are the scientific and artistic essence of ancient architecture in China.