Yulin City, Guangxi Ancient known as Yulin, although it belongs to the remote area in ancient times, but known as "a thousand years of ancient state, Lingnan metropolis" reputation, more than 2,000 years of state and county history, so that a variety of cultures here blend and gather, accumulated a thick, unique Lingnan culture, and Buddhist culture here also shows a different style, in Yulin Bobai, the most famous attraction here is the Yanshi Temple, although there is no monk in the temple, every year in the first month to worship more than tens of thousands of pilgrims, is very peculiar, but also worth a visit.
Yanshi Temple is located in Shiping Village, Yulin City, founded in the Tang Dynasty, when the festival made Gao Biao attack Nanzhao, Zhao is near the current Erhai, at that time was divided into six small countries, there are six kings, Nanzhao in the south of the other 5 small countries, and unified the entire Erhai, at that time Gao Biao is through Yanshi Mountain, feel that the boulders on this mountain are very peculiar, and the caves on the mountain are deep, Tang Xiantong six years (865) built a temple on this site, and because of the mountain named Yanshi Temple, it is not exaggerated to say that it is a thousand-year-old temple.
During the Southern Han Dynasty, Liu Chongyuan, the governor of the Southern Han Dynasty at the time, passed by here and heard that his wish was very enlightening, so he made a wish for a safe re-election, and when he returned to his hometown a few years later, he expanded the Yanshi Temple to make a wish, and changed it to jueguo Zen Temple, and during the Southern Song Dynasty, Song Qinzong took the throne, and the then chancellor Cai Jing was demoted to the Lingnan region, and Cai Jing's fourth son Cai Qi was exiled to the Baizhou area, which is now Bobai, Guangxi. It is rumored that Cai Qi once went to the Yanshi Temple to play, and was very surprised to see the stone carvings in the temple, leaving the ink treasure of the "Heavenly Palace on Earth" here.
In fact, the scale of The Yanshi Temple is not large, built on the mountain, it is composed of natural stone caves and artificial buildings, divided into two parts, Dongtian and Dongdi, and there are Buddha statues in both caves. The rock where the cave and the cave are located resemble being split in two by a boulder, and in the two holes exposed from the boulder, the middle rock pours a small waterfall from the top of the stone, dripping water all year round. Dongtian is known as The Yanshi Temple, dongdi is a problematic silent hall, the walls are left with poetry inscriptions left by literati and inkers, and in the middle is called Tianzhu Guo, which enshrines dozens of identical statues of Guanyin Bodhisattva.
The most famous of the Yanshi Temple is the rice cave, it is rumored that after the Yanshi Temple was built that year, when the opening ceremony was held, this rice cave often came out of the rice, three times a day, it was very punctual, and the rice that came out was only enough for the monks in the temple to eat, if the monks in the temple were more out of the rice, the monks were less out of the rice, and later there was a monk in the temple who was greedy and disgusted with the amount of rice, so he chiseled the mouth of the cave wide, but the rice hole has never come out of the rice since then. This story is actually found in many temples in many places, but whether true or false, remember not to be greedy in everything.
Yanshi Temple can be said to be the birthplace of Buddhism in Bobai County, and does not charge tickets, at the beginning of each year, from nearby towns and pilgrims from afar countless pilgrims, especially on the third day of the first lunar month reached its climax, it is said that the maximum number of people per day is more than 30,000, less than 20,000 people, more strange is that there are no monks in the Yanshi Temple, only rows of Buddha statues, this is not nothing, more wonderful is that there is a Taoist temple not far from the Yanshi Temple, called Ziyang Temple, which was built in the Eastern Han Dynasty. It is the oldest Taoist temple in Guangxi, and there are no Taoist priests in the Taoist Temple, but the incense of the Ziyang Temple is still exuberant every year, and this temple is really "wonderful".
At the mouth of Shiping Village, there is also a piece of cliff carved under the red stone rock, called the Three Spirits Stone Carving, the earliest carved in the Sui Dynasty period, is the earliest preserved time in Guangxi Province, the earliest cliff carving, there is time may wish to go along the road to see, Yanshi Temple may just be carved by the predecessors at will, but it is undeniable that it is the wisdom crystallization of the ancients in the deep mountains that were inconvenient to traffic and economically underdeveloped at that time, it is the wisdom crystallization of the ancients, and it is not only possible to visit the ancients, but also to climb the mountain, killing two birds with one stone, which is very good.