At the end of the 17th century, the Manchus, led by Nurhaci and Huang Taiji, unified the tribes of the Mongolian steppe, and then conquered the Central Plains, and through the efforts of kangxi, Qianlong and other emperors, they formed the "Kangqian prosperous era" in Chinese history.
The Kangxi Emperor and the Qianlong Emperor
In order to consolidate power, the kangxi and Qianlong emperors quickly accepted the traditional culture of the Han people and achieved integration and development with the Central Plains. In order to consolidate the tranquility of the northern frontier of the Qing Dynasty, The Kang and Qian Emperors personally led the princes and ministers every autumn to hold a hunting activity for the purpose of military training in chengde Weichang County, known in history as "Mulan Qiudi". On the other hand, we respected the beliefs of the ethnic minorities in the frontier, vigorously supported Tibetan Buddhism, and built a royal temple around the Chengde Summer Resort. The Eight Temples of Chengdewai arose in this historical context.
Mulan Qiudi
There are twelve of the eight temples in Chengde, all of which are lama temples, because eight of them are permanently resident lamas, and they are directly under the jurisdiction of the Lama Printing Office of the Qing Government of Beijing, and they are outside the Beijing Division, so they are accustomed to being called the Outer Eight Temples.
Chengde Wai Eight Temple Complex
Since the 52nd year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1713), the Kangxi Emperor first built Puren Temple, after The Pushan Temple, the Qianlong Emperor successively built Puning Temple, Puyou Temple, Anyuan Temple, Pule Temple, Putuo Zongcheng Temple, Guang'an Temple, Special Statue Temple, Luohan Hall, Sumire Fushou Temple, Guangyuan Temple. It lasted seventeen years, and was completed in the forty-fifth year of Qianlong (1780). Each of the twelve temples is associated with specific historical events of the time.
In the fifty-second year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1713), coinciding with the sixtieth birthday of the Kangxi Emperor, the Mongol princes and ministers of various tribes gathered in Rehe to wish Kangxi a happy birthday, and asked for the construction of temples to pray for the emperor's blessing, so they chose to build Puren Temple and Pushan Temple at the foothills of the east side of the Chengde Mountain Resort.
The earliest temple built among the eight temples outside Puren Temple
In the spring of the twentieth year of Qianlong (1755), the Qing army quelled the rebellion of the Mongol Dzungars in Ili for many years, and decided to knight the upper Mongolian nobles who had contributed to the counter-rebellion, so they built puning monastery in the north of the mountain village modeled on the Tibetan Samaya Monastery.
Puning Temple Mahayana Pavilion
In 1757, the Dashdawa tribe of the Mongol Dzungar tribe was praised by the Qing government in quelling the Amir Sana rebellion in the northwestern region, and in order to respect their beliefs, the Qianlong Emperor decided to build an Anyuan Temple modeled on the temple of his hometown of Ili Gulza.
Anyuan Temple
The temple of Putuo Zongcheng and the temple of Meru Fushou, two large temples with a strong Tibetan architectural style, have another significance. "Putuo Zongyan" is a paraphrase of the Tibetan Potala Palace, which was built in imitation of the Potala Palace. "Sumiya Fushou" is a transliteration of the Tibetan word Tashilhunpo, which was built after Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse. Potala Palace and Tashilhunpo Monastery are the presiding temples of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, respectively, and represent the highest status of Tibetan Buddhism. The establishment of these two temples reflects the close connection between the Qing government and the Tibetan region at that time, and also shows the stability and unity of the country at that time.
The Great Monument Pavilion and the Five Pagoda Gates of the Temple of Putuo Sect
The establishment of the Eight Temples outside Chengde, as the Qianlong Emperor said: "Not only to expound the Yellow Religion, but also to appease and desolate, to be gentle and cherish the distant people, to enjoy the pleasures of the long and the eternal, and to never be infinitely cloudy." "Transforming noble political purposes into quiet temple gardens, complex politics are also completely dissolved in the benevolent eyes of the Buddhas and the swirling clouds of incense."
Pule Temple Xuguang Pavilion PanlongZaojing shows the royal style
The Eight Temples complex in Chengde were all built by the Qing Dynasty, and their architectural forms and layouts were not exquisite and grand, but also reflected the theme of harmonious coexistence among the big families of all nationalities.
The construction of the Eight Temples outside Chengde is mainly divided into three stages. The early period, that is, the Late Kangxi Dynasty Puren Temple and The Pushan Temple are represented. Its architectural layout and shape follow the Han-style Buddhist temple, but in the worship of Buddha statues and some architectural decorations, there are references to themes with lamaist content, such as the "Six-Character Mantra" written in Sanskrit texts.
Floor plan of Puren Temple Traditional Chinese layout
The middle period, that is, the early Qianlong Period, is represented by Puning Temple, Puyou Temple, Anyuan Temple, and Pule Temple. The construction basically retained the Han form, but gradually began to build a building with a Tibetan Buddhist theme behind the layout of the Han temple, using a typical "mandala" shape and "Dugang French style", which contrasted with the previous Chinese architecture.
In the later period, the imitation Tibetan-style Temple of Putuo Zongcheng and the Temple of Sumire Fushou broke the regular and symmetrical layout of the Han-style temple on the plane, combined with the undulating terrain and flexible layout according to the mountainous terrain. The main building has become a huge Tibetan red platform, and the architectural details also quote many Mongolian and Tibetan patterns, such as the "Eight Treasures" of Lamaism, Lama Pagoda and so on.
The free-development floor plan is the most common form of Buddhist temples in Tibet, without a central axis, and is freely added as the scale of the monastery expands. The gradual derivation of the Eight Temples of Chengde from the early Han-style temple layout form to the Tibetan free layout form also reflected the idea of "unification within the universe" in the Qianlong period at that time.
Floor plan of the Temple of Putuo Zongcheng
The architectural layout of Tibetan temples is arranged according to the Buddhist cosmology, the spatial pattern of the "mandala". Such as Puning Temple, Anyuan Temple, Pule Temple, Putuo Sect Temple, Sumire Fushou Temple, etc. are all. The mandala, translated as mandala, is originally the altar of the Tantric masters of Tibetan Buddhism, and later extended to the composition of the universe. They are all cross-symmetrical in form, with square circles, doors on all four sides, and a round wheel in the center. One of the most typical is the image of the karmic mandala, which is concentrated in the Chengde Wai Eight Temples complex.
The cosmology of mandala Tibetan Buddhism
The castle of Pule Temple was built according to the karmic mandala. The castle is a square 2-storey, strip stone masonry, 8 meters high, 44.4 meters long and wide, with a pheasant railing and yellow glazed tile eaves. There are eight purple, yellow, green, black and white glazed lama pagodas on the lower platform: four of the four corners are yellow, green in the south, white in the north, black in the east, and purple in the west.
Floor plan of Pule Temple
The five-colored pagoda is said to symbolize the lama's "five elements", that is, earth, water, fire, wind, and air; Another is said to symbolize the gods, Buddhas, and Bodhisattvas within the mandala. There is also a theory that together with the Asahi Hikari Pavilion, it constitutes the "Nine Society" or "Nine Mountains and Eight Seas". Xuguang Pavilion is a heavy eaves round hall, built on top of the square pavilion city, showing the image of a circle in the mandala square, transforming the mandala form in the Buddhist scriptures into a flat and three-dimensional composition of the building, which is in line with the traditional Chinese theory of a heavenly circle place. A perfect altar that implies that the Buddha is heaven.
Pule Temple Xuguang Pavilion and Tongfan Gate
Puning Monastery was built modeled after the Tibetan Samaya Monastery. The first half of the layout is still symmetrically laid out in the traditional Han architectural style, while the rear part takes advantage of its location in the middle of the mountain to build the "Mahayana Pavilion", which symbolizes Mount Meru, on a high platform. Its terrain is as high as 9 meters above the front half, forming a huge mandala figure.
The exterior of the "Mahayana Pavilion" is based on the shape of Han Chinese architecture, incorporating a large number of Tibetan architectural techniques. Judging from the treatment of the roof, the Mahayana Pavilion is a combination of four corners and five roofs, and adopts the Han-style pavilion method in structure. The shape of the roof adopts three kinds of eaves: the south direction is six eaves, which means the Buddhist emptiness, also known as "Liuhe", the east and west directions are each five eaves, the Buddha means "five great" (earth, water, fire, wind, air), the north direction is four eaves due to the change of terrain, and the Buddha means "four man", that is, four kinds of mandala.
Exterior to the north of the Mahayana Pavilion
The four major continents of the Four Sides of the Mahayana Pavilion, with the south of the continent on the front, are used to show "fire", decorated with red, in the shape of a triangular ladder; The east direction is "Dongsheng Shenzhou", which is black and crescent-shaped to show "wind"; The west direction is "West Cow He Chau", decorated with white and round shaped to indicate "water"; The north direction is "North Julu Chau", decorated in yellow, square in shape to indicate "earth". Each majority of the continents is subordinate to two central continents. Eight Zhongzhou is a hexagonal, four-corner double-layer white platform with different shapes: the four white platforms in front and behind are hexagonal, and the four white platforms in the east and west are hexagonal diamonds in the front and rectangular in the back.
Puning Monastery is one of the four major continents of the Tibetan layout of the South Zhanbu Continent
There are four-colored pagodas built around the Mahayana Pavilion: the white pagoda in the northwest, called the "Great Circle Mirror Wisdom Pagoda"; To the northeast is the Black Tower, called the "Equality Wisdom Tower"; To the southwest is the Green Tower, called the "Magic Observation Wisdom Tower"; To the southeast is the Red Tower, known as the "Tower of Wisdom made by Chengshou".
Puning Temple Southwest Green Pagoda
This kind of plane and spatial layout of the Fusion of Chinese and Tibetans has become a stereotype in the Outer Eight Temples. In addition to Puning Temple and Pule Temple, the Dahongtai Complex of the Temple of Sumire Fushou, the Dahongtai Complex of the Temple of Putuo Sect, the Falun Hall of Puyou Temple, etc., all fully present the connotation of Tibetan Buddhism in terms of plane and space, as well as the ideas of the integration of Chinese and Tibetan architecture and the unity of all ethnic groups.