When you walk through the streets of Jinjiang, through the bustling Chunxi Road, and into the bustling Taikoo Li, there will be such a picture in the downtown area: a red wall in the midst of prosperity, separated by "two worlds", outside the wall is a trendy landmark of the modern city, and inside the wall is a thousand-year-old temple with Sanskrit sounds. History and modernity, through thousands of years, like the first meeting. This thousand-year-old temple across the wall from Taikoo Li is the Daci Temple, known as the "No. 1 Jungle of Aurora".
It was founded in the Wei and Jin dynasties and flourished in the Tang and Song dynasties
Master Xuanzang was ordained here
Daci Temple is known as "the first jungle of Aurora" by the world, what is the origin of this title? According to the Southern Song Dynasty monk Puji's "Five Lantern Huiyuan", an Indian monk named Baozhang "traveled east to this land between Wei and Jin, entered Shu to worship Puxian, and left great mercy". It is estimated that Daci Temple should have a history of more than 1,600 years since its establishment.
Daci Temple's real fame came to prominence during the Tang Dynasty. In the first year of Tang Wude (618 AD), Daci Temple ushered in an important monk, who was the prototype of Tang Seng in the four famous novels "Journey to the West" - Sanzang Master Xuanzang. At that time, Xuanzang went from Chang'an to Chengdu and studied Buddhist scriptures with teachers such as Bao Xian, Daoji, and Zhizhen. After a period of time, Xuanzang received full ordination in Chengdu Daci Temple and sat in Xia to learn the law. In the next five years, Xuanzang devoted himself to cultivating the Fa in Daci Temple, planting the seeds of going to Tianzhu to learn scriptures.
In the first year of Tang Zhenguan (627 AD), Xuanzang took Chang'an and embarked on the road of learning scriptures from the west to the west, until he returned in the nineteenth year of Tang Zhenguan (645 AD). After returning from studying the scriptures, Xuanzang began to engage in the translation of Buddhist scriptures, translating a total of 75 Mahayana sutras and 1,335 volumes, and he eventually became one of the four major translators of Chinese Buddhism and the founder of the Chinese Han Buddhism Enlightenment Sect. Since Xuanzang was ordained in Daci Temple, the Tang Dynasty gave special care to Daci Temple.
In the fifteenth year of Tang Tianbao (756), An Lushan captured Chang'an, and Tang Xuanzong took refuge in Chengdu. Xuanzong saw that the monk Yinggan of Daci Temple gave porridge on the streets of Chengdu, relieved the poor people, and prayed for the blessing of the country, he was deeply moved, and he was deeply moved by the plaque of Yinggan's edict "Great Shengci Temple", giving 1,000 acres of land, and ordered the transformation and expansion of the temple, and hand-picked the former third prince of Silla who traveled to Shu Wuxiang Zen Master personally supervised the construction, which made Daci Temple have an amazing development. In the fifth year of Tang Huichang (845 AD), Wuzong destroyed the Buddha, and Daci Temple had the title of Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, so "it is not in the case of destruction". It became the only preserved Buddhist temple in Chengdu at that time, and it was also the largest Buddhist temple in Shu at that time.
The data shows that in its heyday, Daci Temple had a total of 96 courtyards, and there were 8,524 "pavilions" and "tower halls and corridors" that formed the temple, and the scale of the temple's buildings far exceeded that of other famous temples in the Tang Dynasty. For example, the famous Great Ci'en Temple in Chang'an City at that time only had more than 10 courtyards, 1,897 rooms, and 300 monks. There are more than 20,000 monks in Daci Temple.
Such a large-scale, carved and painted building complex also made Lu You sigh after visiting Daci Temple: "Ten thousand tiles are like scales and a hundred-foot ladder, and they are abrupt and cloud-like from a distance." The treasure curtain is set by the wind and the lights shine together, and the dust and horses do not hiss. Starfall is in the middle of the sky, and the sky is quiet, and the lotus land guest is fascinated. On the way back, the moon is in the shade of Huai, and the home is further west in the flower line. ”
The artist paints on the wall
Su Shi praised "exquisite crown world"
If it is just a large number of buildings, perhaps Daci Temple will not be worthy of the name of "the first jungle of Aurora". The reason why Daci Temple can be branded with this title in the long history is also because of its thousand-year-old cultural precipitation.
In addition to being a holy place for listening to scriptures and worshipping Buddha and learning Buddhism, Daci Temple is also a shining treasure house of art. Historically, due to the success of Tang Xuanzong and Tang Xuanzong, many famous painters also gathered in Chengdu, making Chengdu painting flourishing.
From the beginning of the Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, for more than 300 years, hundreds of nationally renowned painters and calligraphers walked into the Daci Temple to create, and painted thousands of colorful and majestic murals in the building, platform, pavilion, hall, hall, room and corridor. Among them, there are more than 10 handwritten works by the painter Wu Daozi, and the Chinese Buddhist mural art has reached its heyday at this time.
Li Zhichun, the transit envoy of Chengdu Road in the Northern Song Dynasty, once wrote a book "Painting Notes of the Great Shengci Temple", in which he wrote, "There are as many Tang painters in the world as Chengdu; Compared with Chengdu, it is not as prosperous as the Great Shengci Temple", and recorded in detail a group of data on the murals of the Daci Temple: "A total of 96 courtyards, according to the pavilion, hall, tower, hall, hall, corridor without worry 8,524 rooms, painting the Buddhas such as 1,215, Bodhisattva 1,488, Emperor Shak, Brahma King 68, Arhats, ancestral monks 1,785, Heavenly King, Ming King, Great God will be 262, Buddhist experience in disguise 158, all the gentry and sculptors are not with you. ”
Su Dongpo also had contacts with Daci Temple. In the first year of Song Jiayou (1056 AD), Su Shi and Su Zhe visited Daci Temple and went to Jile Temple to watch the murals. The two brothers praised the works of Lu Lengjia, a famous Buddhist painting master in the Tang Dynasty, and praised them as "exquisite crowns". Today, these four characters are engraved on the wall in front of the Daci Temple.
"A hundred flowers bloom" in Daci Temple
Reflecting the characteristics of an open and inclusive city
Most of the murals and paintings hanging and collected in Daci Temple are mainly based on Buddhist themes. From the Northern Song Dynasty scholar Huang Xiufu's "Yizhou Famous Paintings", we can know that the painters who painted Buddhist works in Daci Temple include Zhao Gongyou, Fan Qiong, Zhang Teng, Lu Lengjia, Xin Cheng, Zhang Nanben, Li Hongdu, Zuo Quan, Zhang Xuan, Yang Yuanzhen, Zhao Wenqi, Zhao Deqi and more than a dozen others.
In addition to these Buddhist-themed works, on the walls of the Beidi Hall of Jingsi Monastery of Daci Temple, there have also been Taoist portraits of the green dragon, the white tiger, the red bird, and the four spirits of Xuanwu. These portraits were painted by Chen Ruoyu, a local painter from Sichuan. At the same time, there were landscape paintings, flower paintings and many portraits of emperors, generals, celebrities and ordinary people in Daci Temple. According to Huang Xiufu's "Yizhou Famous Paintings", Li Sheng, a famous landscape painter in the Tang Dynasty, once drew a map of Hanzhou Sanxue Mountain and Pengzhou to Deshan in the Zhentang of Daci Temple. As a disciple of Li Sheng, Du Cuo painted a bamboo and stone landscape at the Bodhisattva next to the Six Patriarchs of Daci Temple. At the same time, a painting of the prince sacrificing himself to feed the hungry tiger was also painted on the small wall of the three colleges scripture hall.
The monks and abbots in Daci Temple, the artists who came from afar, some of these people are good at writing poetry, some are good at calligraphy, and some are good at painting. They created a large number of Buddhist-themed murals and many works on the theme of landscapes, flowers, and figures, which made Daci Temple bloom with a hundred flowers and dazzling, making this famous Buddhist holy place shine.
From the artworks left behind by Daci Temple and the geographical location of Daci Temple, we can feel the open, inclusive, inclusive and eclectic temperament of Jinjiang and even Chengdu. The charm of Daci Temple lies not only in its historical and cultural value, but also in its close connection with the citizens of Chengdu.
Nowadays, on weekends or holidays, Daci Temple is always bustling. Citizens bring their families here, and after listening to the Sanskrit sounds and feeling the influence of Buddhist culture, they can step into the bustling business cluster of Taikoo Li. History and trends, culture and architecture, East and West, traditional religion and modern civilization collide to create a different landscape, shining in the land of Jinjiang.
Characters|Cao Tang
Pictures, Videos | Jin Jiang Media
Edited by Chen Yuting
Proofreading|Li Xinyu
Editor-in-charge: You Dunli
Review|Zhang Hongbo
Exhibited at Qijiang Fusions
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