An ancient temple in the deep mountains of 1,400 years, 36 temples and grottoes, a very spectacular scenery

#旅游随记# It was another early morning on July 30, 2015. We drove 400 kilometers from Jingbian, Shaanxi to Baiyin City, Gansu. At noon, we arrived at Faquan Temple, which is 7.5 kilometers east of Jingyuan County. Before I came, I heard that this place is very remote, and it is really inconvenient to see it here. The navigation is all pointing the wrong way. The nearest village to the monastery is also more than 2 kilometers away. If you don’t drive by yourself, it’s not easy to come here.

Faquan Temple, formerly known as Hongshan Faquan Temple. At the mouth of Yangshaogou in the east of Jingyuan County. Surrounded by mountains, spring water flows out of the ditch. The temple was built in the Northern Wei Dynasty and has a history of more than 1,400 years, which is very long. In the Song Dynasty, with continuous expansion, a series of temples and caves gradually formed, with rich statues, pavilions and towering ancient trees. There are 36 existing temples and caves, which are of high research and appreciation value. There is a tall stone carved archway more than 500 meters away from the mountain gate, which is very impressive.

There are three main points of folk rumors about Faquan Temple: First, it has the largest Arhat Hall in the country; second, the famous predictor Zhang Yuxian at home and abroad; third, the ten thousand Buddha pagoda enshrines Sakyamuni's finger bone relics. Maybe our luck was not too good, except for Luohantang, we didn't see anything else.

The gate of Faquan Temple is still very magnificent. There is a couplet on both sides of the plaque. The upper couplet is: Jingyuan Eight Scenic Spots are proud; the lower couplet is: Yincheng Ruiqi Shufaquan. Faquan Temple is in the same line as Famen Temple in Shaanxi and Jingyun Temple in Ningxia. Since ancient times, it has been said that "famen temple is in the east and Faquan temple is in the west". There is a stele of Faquan Temple supervised by Yuchi Jingde, the founder of the Tang Dynasty.

It is said that in the early years, many cultural celebrities such as Yu Youren, Zhang Daqian, Zhang Yunjin, etc., visited Faquan Temple and left calligraphy. The "Siku Quanshu", a national first-class cultural relic in Jiuzhoutai, Lanshan Mountain, Lanzhou, was once preserved in the Faquan Temple Grottoes in the 1960s.

Faquan Temple is a temple that integrates Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism into one temple, integrating architectural art, sculpture art, literature art, and garden art. The sculptures of Buddha statues of the Northern Wei Dynasty and the algae wells of the Tang Dynasty murals in the temple are comparable to the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, Tianshui Maijishan Grottoes, and Yongjing Bingling Temple Grottoes. They have important historiography and knowledge for the study of the Yellow River Basin, the Silk Road Grottoes, and Buddhist culture. art value.

For thousands of years, the Faquan Temple has been built and destroyed repeatedly and built repeatedly. Until the 1980s, after more than 20 years of hard work, Faquan Temple had a new look, and the thousand-year-old temple regained its glory. The cave hall and pavilion are connected to the left and right cliffs, and they are magnificent. There are more than 1,560 statues with plump and lifelike shapes.

There is a deep ditch more than 1,000 meters long in the temple, and the temple grottoes are scattered under the cliffs on both sides of the deep ditch. From a distance: the long bridge is arched, the spring is flowing back, the shade of elm and willows, the winding path is secluded, the caves are numerous, the towering palaces are towering, the pavilions are dotted with stars, and there are inscriptions by literati and inscriptions of the past, and painted sculptures by skilled craftsmen , Make Faquan more famous.

In recent years, some Buddhist charity organizations and individuals have continuously increased their investment, and many newly built landscapes have made the scenic spots more perfect.