Misan Shōjo-ji Temple
The statue of Saint Rongrui, discovered in 1973, is now in the Yongchang County Museum.
Gansu is located on the main road of the Silk Road, as one of the earliest Areas of Buddhist Spread, Gansu Has many Buddhist caves and monasteries, many famous monasteries, and the Shengrong Temple in Yongchang County, Gansu, is not very famous now. However, if you learn about the history of The Temple of the Blessed Virgin, you will be amazed at how remarkable the Temple of the Sacred Face was in history. This ancient temple, which has been silent for nearly a thousand years, once had a high historical status on the ancient Silk Road and is one of the famous Han Buddhist monasteries in Hexi.
Remains of Misan Shōjo-ji Temple
Yushan Shengrong Temple is located in the western section of Yushan Gorge, 10 kilometers north of Yongchang County, Jinchang City, Gansu Province, and is a community in Jinchuan West Village, Chengguan Town. Yushan Gorge belongs to the Longshou Mountain Range, the canyon runs about 3 kilometers long from east to west, a small river runs through the canyon, and between the two sides of the Yushan Mountain is the Shengrong Temple. The ruins of Shengrong Temple are backed by the ancient Great Wall, and the north and south mountains are winding and winding, with a peculiar shape, and are known as the white elephant tota.
Shengrong Temple was originally built in the first year of Baoding in the Northern Zhou Dynasty (561 AD), originally named Ruixiang Temple, the Sui Emperor had specially visited the Gurudwara, the temple was renamed "Gantong Temple", when Tubo ruled Hexi, it was renamed Shengrong Temple. Shengrong Temple has experienced the rise and fall of the long history of thousands of years. By the 1950s, the remaining temple gates and temples had been demolished by the local people, leaving only two Tang Dynasty brick pagodas and reliefs of Buddha bodies on stone walls.
The two earth-based pagodas built in the Tang Dynasty, shaped like the Xi'an Little Wild Goose Pagoda, are the only Tang Dynasty pagodas preserved in Gansu, which are extremely precious.
The "Big Pagoda" is known as the "Stupa" in historical records, which is a pagoda rebuilt in the Tang Dynasty, shaped as a square seven-level dense eaves hollow brick tower, the base of the tower is 10.8 meters long, the height is 16.2 meters, from bottom to top slightly parabolic points, the appearance is beautiful and simple. There is a gate on the south side of the first floor of the tower, and there are windows on the south side of the second, third and fourth floors, and brick stacked with eaves. On the walls of the pagoda remain the same murals as the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes and the inscriptions "1,500 Monks" and "Shengrong Temple".
The "small tower" sits north and faces south, and is also a hollow brick tower with a seven-story tower body, with a length of 5.26 meters on the base of the tower and a height of 4.27 meters. The southern floor has a voucher arch, and the square eaves of the tower are built horizontally with bricks, and the layers are stacked to select 3-5 floors. The space inside the small tower is small and can only accommodate one person standing.
At the top of the Twin Towers Majestic Royal Mountain, one large, one small, one high and one low, looking at each other, in the middle of the Vast Dragon Head Mountain, piercing the blue sky. Between the valleys guarded by the twin towers is the once glorious Temple of the Holy Face. In June 2001, as an ancient building of the Tang Dynasty, the Shengrong Temple Pagoda was approved by the State Council to be included in the list of the fifth batch of national key cultural relics protection units.
The core cultural relic in the temple is a relief stone statue of Fo Rui, which is eight feet high, and now stands intact on the sun of the stone wall of the original temple site. The discovery of the Buddha head of the Stone Buddha was in June 1973, when Huang Xingyu, then director of the Yongchang County Cultural Center, came to the Yushan Gorge in the Longshou Mountains during a census of cultural relics and found it in the cattle pen of a nearby farmer. The head of the statue is about 58 cm high, the top of the head has a relatively low and flat screw bun, the face is square, the bridge of the nose is raised (slightly residual), the upper eyelids are slightly drooping, and there is a curve below, according to research, the Buddha's head belongs to the Statue of the Northern Zhou or Sui Dynasty, showing a strong Indian statue style. The found Buddha's head can be riveted with the body of the relief stone Buddha Rui of Shengrong Temple, which is completely in line with the scene depicted in the Dunhuang murals about the body of the statue of Shengrong Rui being installed, can be separated, and the Buddha's head can be relocated. The Buddha's head is now treasured in the Yongchang County Museum and is a national second-class cultural relic.
The legendary origin of Shengrong Temple
The statues of Shi FoRui in Shengrong Temple and the temple were famous in Hexi as far back as the Northern Wei and Northern Zhou Dynasties, and the Sui and Tang Dynasties shook the south of the Jiangnan and became famous in the western region.
Speaking of the source of the statue of Saint Rong Rui, it is necessary to mention a monk who has been famous in the history of Buddhism, Liu Saha.
During the Eastern Jin Dynasty, there was a highly influential monk in the north, Shi Huida, commonly known as Liu Saha. According to legend, he had extraordinary foresight and sensitivity, was known as a holy monk, and became the 22nd generation of Buddhist masters, which are recorded in Buddhist texts, and there are many mural stories in the Mogao Caves.
When he was practicing in Hexi, he settled down at Yunzhuang Temple, looked at the direction of the Royal Mountain Gorge one day to worship, and made a magical prophecy: When there is a statue of Rui on this mountain, and the spirit is possessed, then the world is happy and peaceful, and if there is a deficiency, the world will be chaotic and miserable. That is to say, if the buddha statue is complete, the people will be safe and healthy, and if the body and head are separated, the world will be in chaos and the people will suffer.
86 years after his prediction, one day the mountain in the Royal Mountain Gorge shook, and a stone Buddha appeared in the broken wall, with all its limbs and the absence of the Buddha's head. The local officials and people were very shocked, and immediately arranged for skilled craftsmen to carve out the Buddha's head and place it solemnly, who knew that it would fall down during the day and at night, many times. In the decades that followed, natural and man-made disasters continued to fulfill Liu Saha's prophecy.
One day in 557 AD, more than 100 miles away from the Yushan Gorge, Liangzhou Qilijian (now Wuwei City) appeared auspicious at night, people went to look at it and found a Buddha head, everyone thought that this head was the head of the Yushan Stone Buddha, the officials and people immediately sent to the Yushan Gorge with a colored palanquin, who knew that a magical scene appeared, ancient books recorded that the Buddha head and the Buddha body "went a few feet apart, flew and secretly merged, there was no difference." As a result, the world was at peace and the people lived and worked in peace and contentment. Subsequently, the emperors of various dynasties used this prophecy to cultivate monasteries and teach the people in an attempt to prosper.
It is precisely because the statue of Shengrong Rui has such a legendary origin, so the status of Shengrong Temple in the ancient Southern and Northern Dynasties and Sui and Tang Dynasties was very high. As an imperial temple, emperors of all dynasties have come to donate money and materials.
The Temple of the Blessed Virgins was once a magnificent place
There are many stories about Liu Saha in the murals of dunhuang Mogao Caves, and there is also a wealth of information about Liu Saha in the Tibetan scripture cave literature, and most of these murals and materials are reflections of Liu Saha's activities in Yongchang (ancient fanhe). Because Liu Saha is not only one of the great monks who built the Mogao Grottoes, but also the ancestor who opened up the Yongchang Shengrong Temple.
Shengrong Temple has deep roots with dunhuang Mogao Grottoes. There are 11 cave murals in mogao caves that involve the story of Liu Saha, the statue of Shengrong Rui, and the Shengrong Temple, as well as the Dunhuang scriptures and cultural relics that have been lost overseas.
According to dunhuang research, 42 caves painted with murals have been cleared from the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, of which 8 caves are painted with a large number of Buddha statues appearing in the Northern Yushan Valley of Liangzhou and murals and inscriptions related to the plot of Liu Saha's Buddha's relics. Among the extant Buddhist texts, such as the Book of Meditation, the Book of Buddha, the Biography of a High Monk, the Biography of a Continuing High Monk, the Biography of a Divine Monk, the Fayuan Zhulin, the Records of the Three Treasures of Ji Shenzhou, the Ancient Records of Shakya, and the Chronicles of Shakya Fangzhi are all recorded.
One of the relics preserved by the British Museum as a treasure now includes the statue of Saint Rong Rui, a silk painting completed during the Tang Dynasty. It was stolen by the British Stein in 1907 from the Dunhuang Mogao Caves.
In fact, Yongchang Shengrong Temple has been the center of Buddhist activities in northern China for a long period of time.
In the first year of Baoding (561 AD), the Northern Zhou Emperor Yuwen Yong ordered the mobilization of manpower from Liang, Gan, and Su prefectures to build a temple in the birthplace of Ruixiang, which took three years to complete. The temple stretched for miles, magnificent, the emperor gave the name Ruixiang Temple; in the fifth year of Sui Daye (609 AD), the Sui Emperor toured the west, led the envoys of 27 countries in the western region, personally visited the temple to pay respects, the imperial pen renamed the Ruixiang Temple to Gantong Temple, gave a large amount of treasure, ordered expansion, for a time the temple was famous all over the world, and became famous; in 705 AD, Tang Zhongzong sent the military department Shangshu Guo Yuanzhenyi Temple to pay homage, and later sent Yushi Huo Siguang to the temple to pay homage to the temple, and ordered the repair of two pagodas; when Tubo ruled Hexi, The temple was renamed Shengrong Temple and expanded again, and successive dynasties have repaired Shengrong Temple to varying degrees.
At the same time, the temple has always been a treasure place for many senior monks to sit in meditation, and Shengrong Temple was a famous temple in Hainei that was valued by the government and the public in ancient times, occupying an important position on the Silk Road, with as many as 20,000 monks at one time. In the eighteenth year of Zhenguan, on his way back to China, the Three Tibetan Master Xuanzang Xitian took the sutra and came to the temple to worship and sit in meditation for several days.
Due to the advocacy and promotion of Buddhism by successive rulers, Shengrong Monastery has always been full of monks, incense is exuberant, the most prosperous, the permanent monks reached more than thousands, generally no less than a thousand people, monks from east to west built houses in Shengrong Temple, the entire valley is full of Buddhist houses, which shows the grand situation of the day.
Now that the temple has been restored and the precious historical relics have been protected, people can once again see the legendary temple.
Written by/Huang Jianqiang Photo/Profile Picture