When it comes to today's Xi'an temples, the most familiar ones are the Great Ci'en Temple, Daxingshan Temple, Wolong Temple, Xiangji Temple and so on. However, during the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was Jinsheng Temple that could be called the first temple in Xi'an. For most Xi'an people today, Jinsheng Temple is an unfamiliar name, and not many people know that Xi'an once had such a temple.
The history of Jinsheng Temple dates back to the Sui and Tang dynasties, and it was originally remodeled from the residence of Yang Jian, the third son of the Sui Emperor Yang Jian, who gave it to his third son, Yang Jun, the Prince of Qin. The residence of Qin Xiaowang is located in Hongdefang, Daxing City, Sui.
Yang Jun was influenced by his parents to worship the Buddha since he was a child, and he was also very good Buddha. He had asked for renunciation, but was sternly refused by Emperor Wen of Sui. Yang Jun's character is generous and kind and lacks determination. In the war against Southern Chen, he refused to send troops because he could not bear to kill.
Since Yang Jun, who was devout and reverent of the Buddha, could not become a monk, he set up the Buddhist temple at home. He converted the western half of the Kyoshi King's Mansion into a monastery called Jiduni Temple. He also built the Yanxing Temple in Beijing and the Kaihua Temple in Taiyuan when he was the governor of Hezhou.
By the first year of the Sui Dynasty Emperor's great cause, Yang Jun had died at this time. The Sui Dynasty Emperor honored the then high monk Master Xuanyi as the Crown Prince ordination Master, and changed the eastern part of the residence of Yang Jun, the Prince of Qin, into The Daodeni Temple, as the residence of Master Xuanyi.
In the Tang Dynasty, Hongdefang was renamed Chongdefang. In the 23rd year of Zhenguan, Tang Taizong Li Shimin died, and after Emperor Gaozong of Tang ascended the throne, he moved the Jiduni Temple to the Xiushan Temple in Anyefang, and the original site of the Jiduni Temple was changed to Lingbao Temple, which was used to house the concubines of Emperor Taizong who became nuns. Then the Daodeni Temple next door to the Jiduni Temple was moved to the Taiyuan Temple in Xiuxiangfang, and the original site of the Daodeni Temple was changed to chongsheng Palace as another temple for Emperor Taizong. In the second year of Emperor Gaozong of Tang, Lingbao Temple and Chongsheng Palace were merged into one temple and renamed Chongsheng Temple.
As a harem concubine of Emperor Taizong of Tang, Wu Zetian was a nun. The Zizhi Tongjian records that Wu Zetian's renunciation entered the Ganye Temple within the scope of today's Han Chang'an City, while the Song Dynasty's "Chang'an Zhi" records that Wu Zetian entered the Jiduni Temple of Anyefang. The specific location of The Ganye Temple is difficult to find in the historical materials and notes of the Tang Dynasty. Therefore, there is a saying that Chongdefang is the location of Wu Zetian's Ganye Temple.
The Tang Dynasty people had a fondness for holding grand feasts, and paid special attention to the seasonal and environmental atmosphere, such as the "burning tail banquet" that was popular in the Tang Dynasty. There are also some traditional seasonal activities, often added some new content, more fresh and lively, such as the "Qujiang Feast" during the Tang Dynasty. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, the rise of the imperial examination, the time of the new branch of the jinshi every year, it also happened to be the time when the cherries were ripe, and the banquet to celebrate the new branch jinshi was called "cherry feast".
The Chongsheng Temple in Chongdefang, Chang'an City, is an ideal place to set up a "cherry feast". At the "Cherry Feast", the Emperor would give gifts to his courtiers and the new kojinshi. The cherry that could be rewarded by the emperor was regarded as a symbol of honor and favor, and the rewarded ministers also had to write poems to thank the emperor, and wang wei, Han Yu, and Bai Juyi all wrote it.
During the tang wuzong period, the Chongsheng Temple was not spared, and coupled with the war at the end of the Tang Dynasty, the Chongsheng Temple was eventually destroyed.
During the Tianshun period of the Ming Dynasty, the former site of the Chongsheng Temple in the west of xi'an Fucheng Xiguomen was suddenly glorious, and people excavated the jade statue of the Medicine Buddha in this place, and Zhu Gongxi, the King of Qin Fanhui in Xi'an, spent thirteen years rebuilding the Chongsheng Temple here, and the completed temple was renamed DaChongren Temple. The reconstructed Dachongren Temple is famous for its grand scale and grand architecture, and there are 500 statues of Arhats in the temple.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Xi'an Province had two fuguo counties, the so-called fuguo counties, that is, there was no independent county seat and the county was set up in fucheng or zhoucheng. Xianning County is to the east and Chang'an County to the west. In terms of the five elements, the west belongs to the gold, and the Great Chongren Temple is located in the west of Chang'an County. In order to supplement the golden qi of Chang'an County, coupled with the fact that there are Jinshengpu and Jinshengting behind the Dachongren Temple, the Dachongren Temple is commonly known as the Jinsheng Temple.
Bi Yuan, the governor of Shaanxi during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, listed Jinsheng Temple as the crown of the temples in Xi'an in his compilation of the "Records of Victories in Guanzhong", and many famous temples and ancient temples, including Ci'en and Jianfu Second Temple, which have large and small wild goose pagodas, are behind them. However, the scale and appearance of Jinsheng Temple, Bi Yuan and others did not mention, their concern is in the construction of the history, for the temple and monuments are not recorded only a few words.
Bi Yuan
The greatest glory of Jinsheng Temple is related to a stone stele, that is, the "Great Qin Jingjiao Popular Chinese Stele", one of the four major monuments in the world collected in the Forest of Steles Museum in Xi'an.
There are two Persian Hu temples in Tang Chang'an City, one is the old Persian Hu Temple, which was first in the south and east of Liquanfang Cross Street, and later moved to the southwest corner of Buzhengfang, which was founded in the second year of Emperor Gaozong of Tang (677 AD) and belonged to Zoroastrian Temple; the other is persian Hu Temple in the north of Yiningfang Cross Street, which belongs to Jingjiao. In the ninth year of Tang Zhenguan (635 AD), the Jingjiao bishop Aluo originally went to Chang'an, was treated with courtesy by Tang Taizong, allowed him to preach, and built a temple for him, named Daqin Temple.
In the second year of the founding of Emperor Dezong of Tang, 150 years after the Tang Dynasty missionary, a stone stele was carved in the Book of Lü Xiuyan, funded by the Jingjiao missionary Isis, written by JingJing, and inscribed in the Lü Xiuyan Book, which recorded the teachings and rituals of the Jingjiao, as well as the important historical facts of the transmission of Jingjiao in China by Christian Nestorian missionaries from the Great Qin State in the pre-Tang Dynasty. This is the "Great Qin Jingjiao Popular Chinese Monument".
After the completion of the "Great Qin Jingjiao Popular Chinese Monument", it has been standing in the Great Qin Temple in Chang'an City, until the anti-Buddhist movement in the Tang Wuzong period, the Buddhist temples and monks in Chang'an City were severely cracked down, and the religions rooted in foreign people such as Mani, Zoroastrianism and Jingjiao were even more devastated. The Jingjiao Monument was buried deep under Chang'an with the decline of the Jingjiao.
During the late Ming Dynasty (1621-1627 AD), the "Great Qin Jingjiao Popular Chinese Stele" that had been sleeping underground for more than 800 years was excavated, and at that time, a Western missionary named Jinni Ge happened to be preaching near Xi'an, and had the honor of being the first Western missionary to see this stele. Jinnige carefully studied the stele, examined Li Zhizao's annotations on the stele, and translated the inscription into Latin, which was sent back to Rome by the missionary Luo Yagu in Shanxi, which was the first Western translation of the Jingjiao stele.
Kinney Court
When many missionaries in daming learned of this news, they rushed to print it and translate it into Latin and send it to Europe. The locals of Xi'an feared that the Jingjiao Monument would be stolen by missionaries, so they carried it to the nearby Jinsheng Temple and handed it over to the monks for safekeeping.
Jingjiao monument in Jinsheng Temple
Jinsheng Temple, which was rebuilt in the next year of tomorrow and has been continuously built for more than 400 years, has a majestic mountain gate, a tall courtyard wall and a majestic temple building in the same year of the Qing Dynasty. At this time, the war in the Guanzhong area began to rise, the smoke was everywhere, the Xi'an Province was strong and clear, and the village forts near the city were also not defended.
Jinsheng Temple, which has been more than 400 years old, because of its tall courtyard wall, can be held firm and sheltered by refugees, and suddenly became the Jinsheng Temple Fort. In the face of the chaotic war situation at that time, how could jinsheng temple fort, the land of bullets, exist alone. In the end, Tuan Yong, who insisted on forting Jinsheng Temple, and Jinsheng Temple were annihilated in history.
Jinsheng Temple Stone Arch
In 1906, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Japanese Adachi Kiroku was hired to teach at Shaanxi University, and when he passed the Jinsheng Temple outside the west gate of Xi'an, what he saw was the broken bricks and tiles in the temple, leaving only the mountain gate of the gate and the exquisite archway built outside the mountain gate in the 20th year of the Wanli Calendar (1592 AD), the only remaining small hall in between, the white marble water plate made during the Qianlong period and the Han white jade stone jar, as well as the fan-shaped brick wall, granite pillar foundation, and stone stele. One of the stone tablets is the "Great Qin Jingjiao Popular Chinese Stele".
A stone jar in the ruins of Kinshoji Temple
After the destruction of Jinsheng Temple in the war, the stele that existed in the temple survived, and was exposed to the wilderness for many years. At the request of all parties, the Qing government once allocated 100 silver taels to the Shaanxi government to build a stele pavilion to protect the Jingjiao Monument of Jinsheng Temple, but after layers of deduction, the appropriation for arriving in Xi'an was only 5 taels, and local officials had to build hastily, and the stele pavilion failed to persist for too long before collapsing, and the Jingjiao Monument returned to the dilemma of wind and rain.
Westerners have been coveting the "Great Qin Jingjiao Popular Chinese Monument", and many Western scholars have called for the Jingjiao Monument to be returned to the British Museum through the Times.
Stone stele on the ruins of Jinsheng Temple, left a jingjiao stele
A Danish explorer named He Lemo, a so-called Western explorer who was active in China during that period, was no different from a thief. He immersed himself in the library department of the British Museum and studied a large number of documents on China and jingjiao monuments, and became very interested in this stone stele. He was determined to go to Xi'an to try to obtain the original Jingjiao stele, or at least to obtain a precise imitation of the stele.
He Lemo
After He Lemo arrived in Xi'an, after secret visits from various parties, he finally found out the location of the Jingjiao Monument. After inspecting the Jingjiao Monument on the spot, he got close to the monk Yuxiu, the abbot of Jinsheng Temple, where the Jingjiao Monument is located. He Lemo gave gifts such as Yuxiu monk silk and a magnifying glass.
Ruins of Kinshoji Temple
As for some historical records in later generations that record that the monk Yuxiu accepted a major bribe, there is no evidence to prove this. He Lemo revealed to the Monk Yuxiu the plan to obtain the Jingjiao Monument, and there was no actual evidence to prove that the Yuxiu Monk agreed, and the contract signed by the two was only an agreement to rent two houses in the temple, one of which was used for the stonemason to imitate the Jingjiao Monument, and the other for the interpreter who came with He Lemo, and the Ningbo native Fang Xianchang lived.
After He Lemo arrived in Xi'an, his every move was closely watched by the Shaanxi government. He Lemo's plan was to imitate a Jingjiao stele, and then swap it with the real stele to steal the real stele. Although He Lemo repeatedly stressed the need to pay attention to secrecy, the matter was eventually known to the Shaanxi government. Officials in Shaanxi also immediately inspected the original stele of the Jingjiao Monument and immediately sent two people to guard the Jingjiao Monument day and night so as not to be "stolen beams and replaced with pillars." Soon, Cao Hongxun, the governor of Shaanxi, ordered that the original stele of the Jingjiao Monument be moved into the Forest of Steles in Xi'an. He Lemo eventually transported an imitation of the Jingjiao Monument back to the West.
Remains of the mountain gate of Kinshoji Temple
The safety of the Great Qin Jingjiao Popular Chinese Monument was finally protected, and after weathering the wind and rain, it finally reached its best destination. It is precisely because of the efforts of predecessors to protect it that we can see this national gemstone at the Forest of Steles Museum in Xi'an today.
Qin People Guardian Monument
He Lemo's visit to Xi'an to plot the Jingjiao Monument was highly concerned by the Qing government and all sectors of society at that time, and these were recorded in some archives and historical materials in the newspapers and periodicals of the time. This past of qin people and qin officials jointly protecting national treasures has added a bright color of civilization to the turbulent end of the Qing Dynasty.
Jinsheng Temple stone jar in Guangren Temple
After the "Monument to the Popular Chinese Of the Great Qin Jingjiao" was removed, the Jinsheng Temple, which had become a ruin, was no longer remembered, and gradually disappeared from the vision of Xi'an City, and gradually disappeared from the memory of Xi'an people.
The only remain of the original site of Jinsheng Temple
The "Great Qin Jingjiao Popular Chinese Monument", which once stood in Jinsheng Temple for hundreds of years, has become one of the four major inscriptions in the world, and the qianlong Han white jade stone jar that remains of Jinsheng Temple has also become the treasure of the town temple of Xi'an Guangren Temple. The Jinsheng Temple, on the other hand, left only a stone stele inscribed by Bi Yuan in the Qing Dynasty, standing quietly in the family courtyard of a unit located on today's Fenghao East Road, telling that it was once part of the Jinsheng Temple.