Tour Guide Words for the Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple in Dali, Yunnan

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Welcome to Dali, which is known as the "hometown of literature".

Dali

Dali is a this beautiful city on the western Yunnan Plateau, the main settlement of Bai nationality, one of the first national historical and cultural cities approved by the State Council, and a national key scenic spot.

Dali was called Yu Ye in ancient times, and it was named after Duan Siping, the leader of the White Man, established Dali in the Five Dynasties. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, Dali was the political, economic and cultural center of Yunnan.

Dali has Cangshan Mountain, Erhai Lake, Ancient City and butterfly spring. Today we are going to visit the Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple, which has become a symbol of Dali tourism.

Overview of Chongsheng Temple

Chongsheng Temple is located at the north 1.5km of Dali Ancient City, with Erhai Lake in the east and Leying Peak in Cangshan Mountain in the west.

Chongsheng Temple was built by Feng Youshi (824-859), the tenth generation of Quan Wang in Nanzhao. After completion, it became the center of Buddhist activities in Nanzhao and Dali, and became a famous royal temple in Dali. Therefore, Chongsheng Temple has the reputation of "Buddha Capital".

Chongsheng Temple, also known as the Three Pagodas Temple, is the Three Pagodas Temple written by Xu Xiake, a traveler in Ming Dynasty, in Yunnan Diary, and the Tianlong Temple mentioned by Jin Yong, a master of modern martial arts novels, in Tianlong Babu. The spectacular temple building of Chongsheng Temple was burned down in Xianfeng period of Qing Dynasty, and only three pagodas were well preserved.

The "sage" of Chongsheng Temple refers to Guanyin, which is very popular in Dali. The March Street is also called Guanyin Street every year. "Continued Yunnan Tongzhi" records: "There are three pagodas in front of Chongsheng Temple, and there is a Guanyin statue in the temple, which is 20 feet high and was cast by Dong in the Tang Dynasty."

In March, 196 1 was announced by the State Council as the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units. In 2003, it was rated as a national AAAA-level tourist area.

Chongsheng Temple is here, please get off with me.

Basic knowledge of the tower

Entering the gate, we can clearly see the three towers above the steps. The larger tower in the front center is called Chihiro Tower, and the towers behind the two sides are smaller.

This pagoda originated in India and was originally used to hide Buddhist relics. It is a semi-circular tomb. After it was introduced into China, it was combined with the traditional architecture in China, and evolved into various forms, including pavilion style, dense eaves style, bowl-covered style, king kong throne style and so on. The three towers we see now are all dense eaves.

Pagoda is very popular in Dali area, including three pagodas, one pagodas and snake-bone pagodas.

Qianxunta

The full name of Chihiro Pagoda is "Ming Dow Riding the Pagoda", which was built in the Tang Dynasty when Nanzhao advised Fengyou. It is said that it took 48 years for craftsmen in Gong Tao and Yi Hui in the Tang Dynasty to design and build it.

Chihiro Tower stands on a two-story platform with a height of 69.13m and a floor of 16. It is one of the few multi-storey even towers in China.

The structure of the tower is a hollow brick tower with dense eaves. In ancient times, there were well-shaped stairs for people to climb.

From bottom to top, it consists of three parts: tower foundation, tower body and tower gate. There is a coupon niche in the center of the front of each floor of the tower. There is a white marble Buddha statue in the niche, and the niches on both sides are window holes. The staggered direction of the two layers of windows is beneficial to lighting and ventilation in the tower, and the staggered windows are beneficial to the firmness of the tower.

The eaves of the tower get smaller and smaller, gradually converge inward from the third and fourth floors, and finally converge to the top of the tower. The outline of the tower is not an upward rigid straight line, but a curve from top to bottom, slightly convex in the middle, and its shape is slightly similar to that of Xi Little Wild Goose Pagoda.

In the past, there was a bronze golden-winged bird in every corner of the tower, which was said to suppress dragons and monsters in Erhai Lake.

screen wall facing the gate of a house

On the east side of the tower, there is a zhaobi. On the zhaobi, there are four characters of "Yongzhen Mountains and Rivers" in regular script, each of which is 1.7 meters high. This was written by Mu Gong of Guizhou in the Ming Dynasty.

These four words have two reasons. One is that there are many floods in Dali, and the biography of Yongzhen Mountain is intended to alleviate the floods. The Dapeng golden-winged bird at the top of the tower is also a rescue for the dragon. Another way of saying this is that after Dali was incorporated into the territory of the Ming Dynasty, the Duke of Guizhou (the grandson of Mu Ying), who was guarding Yunnan, wrote "Yongzheng Mountains and Rivers" with the intention of defending the mountains and rivers of Yunnan to the death. .

turret

The South and North Towers and Chihiro Tower are isosceles triangles in the plane layout, with a distance of 70 meters from Chihiro Tower and a distance of 97.5 meters between the two towers.

Their architectural age is later than Chihiro Pagoda, which is about the Dali period, equivalent to the Five Dynasties period in the Central Plains (about AD12nd century).

Both towers are ten-story octagonal brick towers with dense eaves and a height of 42. 19 meters. Each floor is carved with coupon niches, Buddha statues and lotus flowers. And the outside of the tower is coated with a layer of white mud. There are umbrella-shaped copper bells and three copper gourd at the top of the tower. l

Special point

For these three towers, we can sum up the following three characteristics:

① Chihiro Tower 16 floor and small tower lO floor are all even towers, which are completely different from the odd towers prevailing in the Central Plains;

② The outline of Chihiro Tower shrinks inward from top to bottom, and the middle part protrudes, showing a soft curve beauty;

It is said that when the three towers were built, the construction method of "piling civil towers and digging for towers" was adopted.

Since these three towers were built more than 1000 years ago, they have experienced long-term wind and rain erosion and the test of many earthquakes. The tower foundation is still stable, and the tower body has no obvious inclination (according to the records, the buildings in the city collapsed by 99% in the earthquake on May 6, 15 15, while the three towers remained motionless, with only 1,000 earthquakes.

This stone on the road is a famous croaking stone. If you hit it with a stone, it will make frogs croak.

Cultural relics exhibition hall

Bypassing the Three Pagodas, the two exhibition halls on both sides of the road are the Three Pagodas Cultural Relics Exhibition Hall of Chongsheng Temple, which displays more than 680 pieces of various cultural relics excavated during the maintenance of the Three Pagodas. Including the scroll of the King Kong Prajna Sutra, the Great Darani Sutra, the pure gold Guanyin statue, the golden Sakyamuni statue and a large number of precious cultural relics such as pearls, agates, crystals, corals and paintings. With high historical value, it is the physical data for studying Nanzhao and Dali history.

The building in front is the bell tower of Nanzhao Bell, and there is a three-tower photo pool on the right, where you can enjoy the "Six Towers".

polyphylla

Zhong Da Bell Tower was built in Nanzhao, formerly known as Shengjian Building. It was built in the 12th year of Nanzhao (AD 87 1). It is a double-eaved wooden structure, which was destroyed in Xianfeng period of Qing Dynasty. The building we see now was rebuilt by 1997, and its height is 19.97 meters.

The original clock was named "Sword" and was cast in the 12th year of Nanzhao (AD 87 1). Xu Xiake once wrote in "Diary of Yunnan Tour": "The clock is extremely large, with a diameter of more than ten feet and a thickness of up to feet, and the sound can reach 80 miles." At that time, one of the sixteen famous scenes in Dali was "Zhong Zhen Buddha Capital". The giant bell and the main hall in the temple were destroyed at the same time during Xianfeng and Tongzhi years in Qing Dynasty. The giant clock now rebuilt was designed by Beijing Ancient Clock Museum according to historical data and cast by Nanjing Chenguang Machinery Factory. The clock is 3.86 meters high, 2. 138 meters in diameter and weighs 16.295 tons. At present, it is the fourth largest clock in China and the largest clock in Yunnan.

Exquisite patterns are cast on the outer wall of the clock: the upper layer is a six-paramita pattern, namely, Miaoparamita, Shengparamita, Shanparamita, King Kong paramita, Treasure paramita and Great Circle paramita; At the lower level are six statues of heavenly kings, namely, the king who listened more, the king who was the Indra emperor, the king who kept the house, the king who grew up, the king who blessed every day, and the king who had big eyes.

Behind the bell tower is Yutong guanyin temple.

Yutong Kannonji

Yutong guanyin temple is a wooden building with five openings and a roof resting on the top of the mountain. Destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, 1999 rebuilt. The temple is 29.99 meters high and covers an area of 8 100 square meters.

In the center of the hall is a bronze statue of Guanyin standing in the rain. The original image was cast in the second year of Zhongxing in Nanzhao, that is, the second year of Guanghua in Tang Zhaozong (AD 899), and was destroyed and recast in 1999. The elephant is 8.6 meters high, the lotus is 1.8 meters high, and the Xumi Mountain below is 2.2 meters high. Guanyin statue and lotus pedestal are both gold-plated with copper, and * * * consumes 1 1 ton of copper. 、

Legend has it that in the process of casting this Guanyin statue, half of the copper was used. At this time, it began to rain. Strangely, it is not water droplets that fall, but copper beads. People collected these bronze beads and cast Guanyin statues, so they named them Yutong Guanyin.

The left side is dedicated to the Buddhist monk Guanyin and the negative stone Guanyin respectively; The right side is dedicated to Shuiyue Guanyin and Ayiye Guanyin respectively. They are all different incarnations of avalokitesvara.

On the wall around the second floor, there are copies of the Historical Biography of Nanzhao State and the Portrait of John Zhang, a painter of Dali State.

The third floor is now the Guanyin Cultural Exhibition.

Dear friends, the tour of the Three Pagodas Scenic Area is coming to an end. The rebuilt Chongsheng Temple complex is huge and reproduces history.