Shaolin Temple is a prestigious Buddhist temple in China, the ancestral home of Zen Buddhism and the birthplace of Shaolin Kung Fu. Located at the foot of Wuru Peak in Songshan Mountain, which is about 0/2km west of Dengfeng City, it is one of the main core scenic spots in Songshan Scenic Area.
Shaolin Temple was built in the 19th year of Taihe in the Northern Wei Dynasty (AD 495). It was built by Emperor Xiaowen to settle the Indian monk Posto. Built in the dense forest of Songshan Mountain, it was named "Shaolin Temple". In the third year of Xiaochang in the Northern Wei Dynasty (AD 527), Dharma, an Indian monk, came to Shaolin and lived in a natural cave in Wurufeng, Shaoshi Mountain for nine years, where he first preached Zen. At this point, Shaolin is called "the ancestral home of Zen". In the early Tang Dynasty, thirteen stick monks such as Zhijian and Tanzong of Shaolin Temple made great contributions in the battle against the king and were praised by the rulers. During this period, due to the strong support of the court, Shaolin Temple developed rapidly and won the reputation of "the first temple in the world", and Shaolin Kung Fu became famous from then on. The Ming Dynasty reached its peak. During the Republic of China, Shi Yousan, a warlord, released most of the buildings in blazing temple, and the Millennium foundation was destroyed. After the founding of New China, with the care and support of the Party and the country, Shaolin Temple was revived. In particular, a film "Shaolin Temple" by 1982 made Shaolin Temple and Shaolin Kungfu popular all over the world and became the top tourism products in Henan and even the world.
Since the establishment of Shaolin Temple, Zen, martial arts and medicine have enjoyed a world-renowned and enduring reputation, and accumulated rich historical and cultural connotations. It was rated as "Top Ten Tourist Attractions in Zhengzhou City" and the first batch of "4A-level scenic spots" in China, with an annual reception of more than 6.5438+0.5 million tourists. It is a veritable tourist pearl in the Central Plains and a tourist attraction in China.
Brief introduction of Shaolin temple
The mountain gate should be "three gates". According to the Buddhist scriptures, Sanmen is the abbreviation of Sanjie Gate, and the temple gate is called Sanmen, which means entering the Tao. ? At present, there are three doors in Shaolin Temple, which were built in the 13th year of Qing Yongzheng (AD 1735). Rebuilt on 1974. Above the main entrance hangs a rectangular gold plaque with the words "Shaolin Temple" inscribed on it, which was canonized in the 43rd year of Kangxi (A.D. 1704). Maitreya is enshrined in the shrine of Sanmen Hall. Behind the shrine is a statue of Wei Tuo. There are a pair of stone lions in front of Sanmen, with erect eyebrows and protruding eyes, pure and mighty; Exquisite carving, Yuan Ming old things. ? Outside the three-door eight-character wall, there are two stone workshops built in the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, which are symmetrical in east and west and have the same shape.
The Temple of the King is the second entrance to the temple, and together with Mahayana Hall and Sutra Pavilion, it is called the three main halls. The original building was destroyed by "Huoe" in 1928, and was rebuilt according to the old system in 1982. There are two King Kong statues on the outside and four heavenly kings on the inside.
Daxiong Hall is the center of Buddhist activities in the temple. The original building was destroyed in 1928 and rebuilt in 1986. The temple is dedicated to Sakyamuni, Pharmacist Buddha and Amitabha Buddha. Hanging on the wall is the imperial book "Bao Shu Lian Fang" written by Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty. Guanyin is hung on the back wall of the screen wall. There are eighteen arhats on both sides.
The Dharma Hall is located behind the Hall of Ursa Major. Monk's lecture and statement office. There are three Tibetan Tripitaka in Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, the secret of Shaolin Boxing, the bronze plate of the Tripitaka in Ming Dynasty, the wooden plate of the chronicle of Shaolin Temple in Qing Dynasty, and the shadow stone of Buddhism. 1928 warlord scuffle, national army Shi Yousan set fire to Shaolin Temple, Fatang and its storage, and was very sad to learn that it was destroyed by fire. The existing Buddhist temple was rebuilt according to the old system in 1992. There is a white marble reclining Buddha in it, which is seven meters long and weighs 16.5 tons. The east and west wall cabinets contain China Tripitaka, Japanese Taisho Tripitaka, Korean Tripitaka, and Buddhist and Shaolin martial arts books.
The abbot's room is the place where the abbot lives and commands in the temple. On September 30th, the 15th year of Qianlong (AD 1750), when Li Hong, the Qing emperor, visited Shaolin Temple, he took the abbot's room as his palace, so it was also called "Longting".
Thousand Buddha Hall, the last hall in Shaolin Temple, is also the largest existing Buddhist hall in Shaolin Temple. It is named after the large murals of 500 arhats painted in the hall. The temple is dedicated to Pilu Buddha, so it is also called Pilu Pavilion. On the north wall and the east and west walls behind the shrine, there are large-scale murals of "Five Hundred Arhats Against Pilu": the murals are 7.5 meters high, 42 meters long and cover an area of about 320 square meters. The composition is rigorous, the image is vivid and magnificent, which is rare in the world. There are still 48 footprints in the temple, which were handed down by monks practicing martial arts in the temple. The Qing court banned folk martial arts, so Shaolin monks had to choose the most secluded and empty thousand Buddha halls to practice martial arts.
Ciyuntang is the most concentrated historic site in Shaolin Temple, located on the east side of Neiyong Road in Sanmen. There are stone tablets 124 blocks below the Northern Qi Dynasty in the gallery, so it is also called the stele gallery. The tablet of Shaolin Temple in Wuping in the Northern Qi Dynasty, the tablet of imperial poetry in the Tang Dynasty in Yongchun in the second year (Wang Zhijing's book), the Great Wall Tower in Song Xuanhe in the fourth year (Cai's book), the first mountain in Song Dynasty (Mi Fei's book), the tablet of Qing Dynasty in Yuan Dynasty (Zhao Mengfu's book) and the book of Zen master Zhuo Cai in the fourteenth year of Yuan Dynasty.
Chu Zuan is located on a hill under Wuru Peak, about one kilometer northwest of Shaolin Temple. This is a temple built by the Song people to commemorate the face wall of the early ancestor Dharma, also known as the "face wall temple". Third, facing the stream, the ancient trees are towering, which is a scenic spot in the mountains; Standing in the yard, you can look up at the Dharma Cave and the Great Dharma Statue at the top of Wuru Peak. At present, the main buildings in buddhist nun are the Mountain Gate, the Ursa Major Hall and the Thousand Buddhas Pavilion. ?
Shanmen, with an unknown date, was built in Jin and Yuan Dynasties, and was rebuilt according to the old system in 1986. ?
Daxiong Hall was built in the seventh year of Xuanhe in the Northern Song Dynasty (A.D. 1 125). Every repair in the past dynasties, the main component is the original of the Northern Song Dynasty. It is the oldest wood and stone structure building in Henan Province, which has important architectural scientific value. There is a brick carving couplet at the entrance of the temple: "Twenty-eight ancestors of the Western Heaven crossed the eastern soil to open Shaolin." There are statues of the second ancestor Hui Ke, the third ancestor monk, the fourth ancestor Daoxin and the fifth ancestor Hongren in the temple. There are still 23 portraits on the east, north and west walls, and another 5 have been restored and destroyed in past dynasties. There are 36 founders of Zen under the primitive Dharma. This painting was created at the end of the Ming Dynasty and depicts a simple image of Gu Zhuo. The shoulder stone painted below is carved with exquisite relief, as well as twelve eaves columns, four inner columns and the waist-girding part of the shrine of Mount Sumi. The content includes people, animals, flowers and scenery. The picture is very rich, the shape is vivid, the conception is ingenious, the artistic conception is remote, and the knife method is vigorous. They were all carved when the church was built in the seventh year of Xuanhe in the Northern Song Dynasty (AD 125), and it has been more than 800 years since then. It is a treasure of stone carving in Shaolin Temple and one of the treasure houses of stone carving art in China. In front of the temple, it is said that the sixth ancestor planted a cypress tree with a circumference of more than four meters. It is said that the sixth ancestor Huineng went back to Shaolin to worship his ancestors and brought the saplings back from Guangdong with bowls and planted them here. ?
The Thousand Buddha Pavilion was founded by Fuyuan, the abbot of Anzu Temple in the early Ming Dynasty. For Buddhism and Guanyin Bodhisattva. In front of the Thousand Buddhas Pavilion, there is a relic stone letter in the first year of Jingkang in the Northern Song Dynasty (A.D. 1 126), which is painted with wires on all sides. In the picture, the heavenly king glared, either holding a sword or holding a pestle; Ladies holding flowers and fruits, graceful posture; The Ghost King has long hair and a face of lost face. The knife technique is fluent and free, and it is worthy of top grade. ?
There are still more than 40 stone tablets in the temple, among which the famous ones are: Ode to Fa Hua by Ting Jian, Hokkeji by Song Dynasty and Hokkeji by Ming Dynasty.
Tallinn, located about 300 meters west of the courtyard of Shaolin Temple, is called Tallinn because the pagodas are scattered like forests. Pagoda is the abbreviation of the ancient Indian sound "Tapo", which means tomb, and in China, it refers to the tomb of monks. In the tower, the soul of the dead or the clothes of the dead are usually placed. ?
Tallinn is the tomb of the abbot of Shaolin Temple and the accomplished and contributed monks. According to the Buddhist system, only after the death of a famous monk, a palace tower and a stone carving record will be set up to show merit and inspire future generations. The shape and level of the tower are not only influenced by the fashions of various historical periods and specific conditions (such as war times and dynasty changes, etc.). ), but also reflects the status, achievements and prestige of the deceased in Buddhism. ?
There are 232 tomb pagodas in Tallinn since the Sui Dynasty, including Sui Pagodas 1, Tang Pagodas 1, Song Pagodas, 7 Golden Pagodas, Yuan Pagodas, 43 Ming Pagodas 139, Qing Pagodas 10, and 2 Contemporary Pagodas with unclear dates. Covers an area of1more than 4000 square meters. It is the largest Tallinn in China.
These towers are colorful in shape, divided into single-layer and multi-layer. The highest layer is seven, which is known as the "seven-level pagoda" in the world, with the highest height of 15 meters. According to the plane shape, there are squares, rectangles, hexagons, octagons and circles. According to the types, there are dense eaves type, wave blocking type and Lama type. Most of them are made of bricks and stones, and some are chiseled from a whole stone. Towers are often engraved with exquisite patterns and reliefs. The content of the inscription on the tower is richer, and the front of each tower has a tower forehead to identify the name of the tower owner; Some pagodas have inscriptions on pagodas behind them, and several influential monks stand by and watch the pagodas. They also set up a monument to record in detail the life story of the owner of the pagoda, the inheritance of the law, the people who erected the pagoda, the age when the pagoda was erected, and so on. Therefore, Tallinn in Shaolin Temple is not only an artistic treasure house for studying ancient Chinese masonry, calligraphy and sculpture, but also a very precious material for studying Buddhism and the history of Shaolin Temple. ?
It is particularly worth pointing out that the Yuan and Ming Dynasties were one of the most important periods in the history of Shaolin Temple. Since the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, Master Fuyu from Xueting entered Shaolin, and Zen Cao Dong returned to his ancestral home until the end of the Ming Dynasty. There were many famous teachers and monks in this period, which was called "Shaolin Renaissance Period" and respected Xueting Fuyu as "the ancestor of Zhongxing". Combined with the historical biography of Zen Buddhism, we can see that this golden age of Shaolin Temple is also the main performance of Cao Dongzong's golden age, and it is also an important performance of China Buddhism in that period. The tomb towers and inscriptions of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties in Tallinn of Shaolin Temple are particularly valuable for academic research on the history of Zen in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. ?
In addition to Tallinn, there are 17 tomb pagodas scattered inside and outside Shaolin Temple since the Tang Dynasty, including 4 Tang pagodas, 2 Song pagodas, 2 Yuan pagodas/kloc-0 pagodas, 2 Ming pagodas, 4 Qing pagodas and 3 pagodas with unknown age, which are also of high value. Among them, Faru Tower was built in the first year of Yongchang in the Tang Dynasty (AD 689), and there are monuments in the tower, which is of great value to the study of early Zen history.
The Li Xueting behind the abbot's house was built in the seventh year of Zheng De in Ming Dynasty (A.D. 15 12) to commemorate Master Hui Ke, and the hall is dedicated to the ancestor Dharma. The plaque of "Snow-Inked Pearl" above the shrine was the imperial title given by Li Hong, Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty, when he visited Shaolin. The plaque is the seal of "the treasure of Qianlong Imperial Pen". After the shrine, Kinnara is served with cast iron, simple and powerful shape.
The Bell Tower and Drum Tower are located on both sides of the Hall of Great Heroes, with the Bell Tower in the east and the Drum Tower in the west. They are four stories high and 45 meters high, which is rare in China. 1928, Shaolin Temple was caught in a fire, the bell tower was destroyed, and the big iron bell fell to the ground and broke into several pieces. This bell tower was rebuilt according to the old system in 1994. The bronze bell was cast according to the prototype in 1995, weighing 6.5 tons. The broken iron clock on the platform in the north corner of the bell tower, which is the genuine one cast by Kim Tae Ho four years ago, has an inscription on it, and the karma is recorded in detail.
Drum tower was destroyed by fire in 1928. The existing Drum Tower was rebuilt according to the old system in 1995.
History of Shaolin Temple
Shaolin Temple —— Located at the west foot of Zhongyue Songshan Mountain, northwest of Dengfeng City, Henan Province 13km, with its back against Wuru Peak and the opposite Shaoshi Mountain like a green screen, with lush trees and charming scenery. Surrounded by mountains, the peaks are connected and scattered, forming the natural barrier of Shaolin Temple. 1983, the State Council identified Shaolin Temple as a national key Buddhist temple and a national key cultural relic protection unit.
Yue Ling at sea is like Songshan Mountain; Shaolin wins the Dojo in the mountain.
Shaolin Temple is the birthplace of Zen Buddhism and Wushu in China, so it is known as "the ancestral home of Zen Buddhism and Wulin resort" and is famous all over the world.
Shaolin Temple was founded in the 19th year of Taihe in the Northern Wei Dynasty (AD 495). Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty deeply believed in Buddhism, and Posto, an Indian monk, came to Luoyang to preach Buddhism, which was highly respected by the emperor. Emperor Xiaowen ordered him to build a temple in the north of Shaoshi Mountain to provide him with food and clothing. Because the temple was built in the deep forest of Shaoshi Mountain, it was named "Shaolin Temple". Posto was the first monk to come to Shaolin Temple. He devoted himself to translating Buddhist scriptures in Shaolin Temple, and received hundreds of disciples such as Hui Guang, Dao Fang, and Buddhist monk Tixi.
The second monk in Shaolin Temple is the legendary Dharma. According to legend, Dharma is the son of South Tianzhu (ancient India) king suddhodana, and his teacher Prajna Paramita is the 27th founder of ancient Indian Buddhism. After Dharma Dharma, he crossed the ocean for three years. When Liang Wudi heard about Dharma, he sent envoys to meet him in Nanjing. But this was not an opportunity for Dharma to talk with Liang Wudi, so he crossed the river and came to Songshan, where he lived in the inner wall of Wurufeng Cave behind Shaolin Temple for nine years and founded Zen Buddhism in China. Later generations respected Dharma as the ancestor of Zen, and Shaolin Temple was also called the ancestral hall of Zen.
In 574 AD, "Wu Zhou destroyed the Buddha" and Shaolin Temple was not spared. A few years later, Emperor Jing of Zhou renamed Shaolin Temple "Hu Yong Temple", restored the temple and the Buddha statue, and sent more than 20 monks, including Hui Yuan and Hongzun, to stay in Hu Yong Temple.
The Sui Dynasty strongly advocated Buddhism. During the reign of the emperor, the old name of "Shaolin Temple" was restored and given to 100 hectare wasteland in Baiguwu, making Shaolin Temple a manor with certain economic strength. At the end of Sui Dynasty, the first fire broke out in Enemy at the Gates and Shaolin Temple, and many temples were destroyed, leaving only the remaining pagodas.
At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, thirteen Shaolin monks saved Li Shimin, the king of Qin, and made great contributions to protecting the country and defending the country. The Tang Dynasty kept giving property to Shaolin Temple, and built many buildings and pagodas. Emperors and Empresses often visit Shaolin Temple and regard it as a treasure house of Buddhism. At that time, Shaolin Temple had 14000 mu, 540 mu of temple foundation, 54 18 temple buildings and more than 2000 monks. As "Shaolin Temple Monument" records: "The pavilion in the temple overlooks the mountains, and the golden brake and the bell shake the Qing Dynasty." Especially in 723, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty ordered an astronomer and a monk to build a jade temple in Shaolin Temple. The monk and his party carefully designed and built a "Brahma Palace" with exquisite carving, "to make it shine, build a Buddha garden and move clouds." At that time, Shaolin Temple was brilliant, ranking first in the world.
In the first year (AD 695), Wu Zetian conferred the title of Songshan Mountain and changed the title to the first year of "Long live Dengfeng". The name of Dengfeng county was obtained from this. In the Tang Dynasty, there were many famous monks in Shaolin Temple, including good thoughts, aspirations, Tanzong, Ming Zen, Fa Ru, Tongguang and so on.
Neo-Confucianism rose in the Song Dynasty, and Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism merged. Neo-Confucianism was influenced by Zen Buddhism, and Zen Buddhism and its ancestral temple Shaolin Temple also developed. During the reign of Song Yongxi, there were more than 9,500 volumes of Buddhist scriptures in Shaolin Temple, which was called "the first temple in the world".
The Yuan Dynasty was the revival period of Shaolin Temple, and the abbot of Fuyu was Shaolin Temple. He built the Bell Tower and Drum Tower. "If it is promoted, it will be abolished. Disciples say that the giver is like Yue and the guest is like the city." There were more than 2000 monks at that time. Shaolin Wushu has also been fully developed.
In the Ming Dynasty, Shaolin Temple was often renovated, making it look brand-new and resplendent. The Ming government exempted the grain difference and built a thousand Buddha halls for Shaolin Temple.
In the Qing Dynasty, Shaolin Temple was renovated and rebuilt on a large scale. In the thirteenth year of Yongzheng, the emperor personally saw the temple fair plan and approved it. The rice price saved in the twelfth year of Yongzheng and the public funds accumulated in Henan Province were all spent. Cypress trees around the temple were cut down, mountain gates were built, and thousands of Buddha halls and old houses were rebuilt. 1750, Emperor Qianlong visited Shaolin Temple, stayed in the abbot's room for the night, and wrote poems to erect a monument.
In the late Qing Dynasty, Shaolin Temple declined gradually. Especially in 1928, the national army of Chiyan Temple, Shi Yousan, burned down the Dharma Hall, Tianwang Hall, Mahayana Hall and thousands of precious scriptures. The fire lasted for dozens of days and nights, and most of the temples in the Millennium Temple turned to scorched earth and became ruins.