Visit the Tiantai Temple, a Tang Dynasty relic in Shanxi.

❤Recommended because:
The Tiantai Temple in Pingshun County, Shanxi, is a historic building of great cultural value, hidden in Wangqu Village in Pingshun County.
🌟Highlights:
📍The Tiantai Temple was built in the fourth year of the Tianyou era of the Tang Dynasty (907 AD). Although it is not large in scale, it is simple in structure, tightly intersected, without complicated decorations, and is sturdy and powerful. It is the earliest existing Tiantai temple in China.
📍The roof of the temple is gently curved, with a deep and wide eave, and the wing corners are stretched, which is very beautiful and has the style characteristics of Tang Dynasty architecture. The column head brackets are very simple, with only one jump in the mouth of the bucket, and a piece of wood is placed on the jump head to support the eaves, and the tail of the bracket is made by extending the two ends of the four rafters outside the eaves, without a command arch or a play head, which belongs to the "bucket mouth jump" method. The beam frame and the bracket are tightly connected into one, the overall structure is simple and clear, the intersection is tight, and it is sturdy and powerful. Many practices are similar to the main hall of the Nanchan Temple built in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, and it is a good structure in small Buddhist temples in China.
📌Glazed tiles, the roof preserves relatively complete glazed ridge decorations such as glazed ridge beasts and swallow mouths, all of which are dragon-shaped and should be relics of the Yuan Dynasty. It is high on the roof, fully demonstrating the majesty of the gods. The glazed tiles are exquisite and delicate, with brilliant and changing colors, and are rare art treasures. They also reflect the superb pottery making skills in the southeastern region of Shanxi during the Yuan and Ming Dynasties.
📌Stone stele, only the main hall and a Tang Dynasty stone stele are left.
💎The Tiantai Temple is one of the only four existing Tang Dynasty wooden structures in the country and is a precious heritage of ancient Chinese architecture.
💎In 1988, the Tiantai Temple was listed as a national key cultural relics protection unit by the State Council.

Post by COHEN SHARP | Oct 17, 2024