隆兴寺英文导游词

The Longxing Temple is 260 kilometers south of Beijing in Zhengding County, Hebei Province. It was built in 586, during the Sui Dynasty, and enlarged in 971, during the Song Dynasty.

The temple covers an area of 82,000 square meters, and its main structures lie along a central axis 380 meters long. If one starts from the screen wall, with its designs of twin dragons playing with a ball, and goes north along the axis, one will come across the three-arch stone bridge, the Hall of Heavenly Kings, the site of the Hall of the Six Non-Buddhist Teachers, the Mani Hall, the Ordination Terrace, the Maitreya Tower, the tower housing a giant revolving bookshelf, the Hall of Great Mercy, the Hall of Amitabha, and the Vairocana Hall.

The Hall of Heavenly Kings, the Mani Hall, the Maitreya Tower, and the tower that houses a giant revolving bookshelf have retained their Song Dynasty architectural style despite repeated renovations over the centuries.

The Mani Hall was built in 1052 and is best noted for its unusual design. Buddhist halls in China are usually square or rectangular, but the Mani Hall has a lean-to on each side making it appear like a cross when seen from above. The crimson walls, green glazed-tile roofs, decorated eaves, and white marble steps combine to make the hall beautiful and awe-inspiring. Another aspect of the hall that intrigues visitors is the doorposts, which are not perfectly vertical but lean slightly towards each other. The ceiling beams also deviate a little from the usual right-angled arrangement. The revolving bookshelf in the tower behind the Mani Hall is made of wood. It measures seven meters in diameter and has an octagonal roof. The structure rests on a sturdy upright shaft whose hemispherical bottom is reinforced with iron. The bookshelf can be easily turned by two persons. The Maitreya Hall houses a statue of Maitreya Buddha standing. The statue is 7.4 meters tall and was carved out of a single piece of wood during the Song period.

The Hall of Great Mercy took its name from the statue of the Goddess of Mercy enshrined there. The hall is 33 meters high and is now the landmark of the ancient city of Zhengding.

The bronze statue of the Goddess of Mercy in the hall is the oldest and tallest in China, and according to records, it was cast in seven parts. The statue is known as Guanyin of a Thousand Arms, but the number of arms actually comes to 42. In her hands, the goddess holds the sun, the moon, a water container, a magic mirror, a bow, an arrow, and other ritual implements showing her great power for relieving suffering and distress. Of the 42 arms, only the two with palms joined together are made of bronze. The others are carved out of wood.

The temple has more than 50 stone tablets, the most valuable of which is the one bearing an inscription about the construction of the Longzang Temple. It dates back to 580, is 1.64 meters high, with a rounded top, and is decorated with five dragons. The inscription on it, totaling 1,477 characters written in regular script, records how Wang Xiaoxiang, governor of Hengzhou, encouraged more than 10,000 officials and commoners in his prefecture to contribute to the construction of the Longzang Temple.

The stone tablet is the best preserved of the three Sui Dynasty tablets in the temple. The characters, written in neatly arranged strokes, are simple yet elegant, dignified but not rigid. They are considered fine examples of calligraphy from the transition period between official script and regular script.

During the past 50 years, since the founding of New China, the Chinese government has appropriated money for the renovation of the temple many times. From May 1998 to September 1999, it spent 32.8 million yuan renovating the Hall of Great Mercy and rebuilding, on their original sites, two side buildings that were taken down in 1944.