Beihai Park Xiangfu Temple, formerly known as the Ming Yingzong Zhu Qi Town in 1458 built a summer palace, after the Qing court stayed in the Central Plains, successive emperors were also happy to escape here, but in the Qianlong period, the then Empress Xiaoshengxian ordered the conversion of this place into a lama temple, as the great filial piety Qianlong also personally issued an edict, requesting to imitate the scale of Longxing Temple in Zhengding County, Hebei Province, the summer palace was changed into a Buddhist hall, and named The Temple of Illumination.
What kind of activities could keep the Qianlong Emperor busy for a month, just to write a word?
After the reconstruction of the temple was completed, every first day of the first lunar month of the lunar calendar, the Qianlong Emperor would hold a grand ceremony of "Shufu" in the Temple, including four ceremonies of blessing, book blessing, benefit and blessing, in order to pray for "blessings from the heavens". After Qianlong, every emperor of the Qing Dynasty also held a "Shufu" ceremony here, so the Temple of Illumination also became a place where the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty had to pray for blessings on the first day of the first lunar month every year.
According to records, every year on the first day of the first lunar month, early in the morning, the Qianlong Emperor went to the Xiangfu Temple, first picked incense in the Great Buddha Hall to worship the Buddha, and prayed for the birthday of his birth mother, Empress Dowager Xiaoshengxian, and called it a blessing; then went to the apse, and used a large brush with the words "Benefiting Cangsheng" written on it, and wrote a big blessing character on the yunlong big red vermilion paper that was two feet square, called Shufu, and kept this blessing word in the main hall, called Liufu, which means that the great Buddha in the Temple has descended on the people of the whole world, and this blessing word is called the first great blessing. Then the emperor went out of the Temple of Illumination and then to the Chengguan Hall inside the Kuaixue Hall, wrote a second fu character, and brought this fu character back to the palace, framed in the mirror frame, and hung on the wall of the Yangxin Hall.
From the beginning of the first lunar month, Qianlong would go to Shufangzhai every day, write the blessing characters repeatedly on the 1 foot and 4 inches square red zhu letter paper, and write them until the twenty-fifth day of the Waxing Moon, and then give these blessing characters as New Year's gifts to the princes and ministers, which is called blessing. On the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, Qianlong came to the Temple of Illumination to worship the Buddha with incense, and went to the apse to take out the fu character written before, which is called Yingfu; then returned to the imperial palace, hung the fu character that was ushered in in the Jianfu Palace, called blessed, and then wrote a fu character and hung it in the Qianqing Palace, and the "Shufu" grand ceremony was officially completed.
From Qianlong onwards, successive emperors of the Qing Dynasty held the "Shufu" ceremony in this way, but by the end of the Qing Dynasty, the emperor no longer personally visited the Temple to hold activities, but only sent eunuchs to pray for blessings.
Where the great Buddha statue of the thousand-year-old golden silk nanmu went, there is only one unsolved mystery left
After entering the gate of Shifuku-ji Temple, as usual, there are bell towers and drum towers on the left and right. To the east is the bell tower, to the west is the drum tower, the so-called morning bell and evening drum. The bell tower and drum tower here are different from ordinary temples, and the bell and drum towers in Shifuku-ji Temple have two floors and three rooms, and the upper eaves are the top of the mountain, showing the grandeur of the royal temple.
On the façade is the Hall of the Heavenly Kings, with a single-eaves roof, green-yellow glazed tiles, and green shears. The plaque at the back of the Hall of the Heavenly King reads "Zongcheng Round Mirror" and the couplet reads "Miaohua Puguan Infinity; Hui Daily Hanging in the Heavens."
The ruins of the Big Buddha Hall behind, there are still faint traces of that year, this is the throne of the Buddha statue enshrined in the Great Buddha Hall, where the Great White Umbrella Cover Buddha Mother was enshrined, it is said that it was carved from a thousand years of golden silk Nan wood, the Buddha statue is 16 meters high, and it is also studded with gems, but in 1900, the Eight-Nation Alliance entered Beijing, and all the jewels on it were dug up, and what was even more tragic was that in 1919, Yuan Shikai's guards reorganized into a fire brigade, cooking in the Big Buddha Hall, and the result was a fire, The Great Buddha Hall, along with the apse and the Bafang Pavilion in the back, was burned down, and now only two stone tablets exist here in the whole back.
These two stone tablets are also worth seeing, the east side of this piece has no words on the front, the back is engraved with Qianlong's "Imperial Interpretation of the Great Buddha Poem", the west side of the front is engraved with the "Imperial Interpretation of the Temple Inscription", the back side has no words, one positive and one echo each other.
This issue of the introduction to Shifuku-ji Temple is over here, and if you want to hear more stories, please continue to pay attention to our five-light second journey.