Lingshan Temple

Lingshan Temple, formerly known as Baozhong Temple, also known as Baoen Temple and Fenghuang Temple, is a national key cultural relic protection unit and a national AAA-level tourist attraction. It is located in Jinping Town, Yiyang County, Luoyang City, Henan Province, 7.5 kilometers away from Yiyang County Government. It covers an area of ​​18,667.6 square meters and a total construction area of ​​1,933.3 square meters. It was built in the early Tang Dynasty.
The main buildings of Lingshan Temple face south to north, and in order of front to back are the Mountain Gate, Heavenly King Hall, Great Compassion Pavilion, Main Hall, and Sutra Library. There are 22 rooms on each of the east and west wings, and monks' quarters and Zen temples are built on both sides of the temple, with a total of nearly a hundred buildings. The mountain gate of Lingshan Temple is unique, and the overall architecture has a certain history. There is a welcoming wall in front of the gate of Lingshan Temple with the three characters "Lingshan Temple" written on it. The temple is a five-story building with four courtyards and pavilions with red walls and green tiles. The first courtyard inside the temple gate is the Heavenly King Hall, in front of which there is an ancient ginkgo tree. The second courtyard is the Great Compassion Hall with flying eaves and hip roofs, which belongs to the Jin Dynasty. The third courtyard is the Main Hall with a five-ridged hip roof. In the middle of the hall, "Shakyamuni" is enshrined, "Medicine Master" on the right, and "Amitabha" on the left, all of which are statues from the Ming Dynasty. In front of the hall stands a seven-story stone pagoda, on which are carved 30 great arhats and stone Buddha statues. In front of the hall stands a row of stone steles, with inscriptions of the reconstruction of the temple from the Jin and Ming dynasties to the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty. There is a Sutra Library in the backyard of the temple, with the Dharma Hall downstairs and two corridors in the east and west, facing each other. A gatehouse was built in the middle, with walls on both sides. On both sides of the wall, there are steles with poems inscribed by famous people from past dynasties. Outside the east wall of the temple, there is a spring pool, which was renamed "Phoenix Spring" because of the mountain. The water is about three meters deep. The main stream of the spring water flows into the swimming pool on the east side of the temple, and the tributaries flow into the fish pond in the temple. Finally, they merge and flow down the hillside. There are 15 towers in the southeast of the spring, forming an orderly forest of towers.

Post by EliasKoskinen | Feb 5, 2025