旅游英语----泉州开元寺

大风吹

                    Kaiyuan Temple[/SIZE]



Formerly named "Lotus Temple" and first built in 686AD of the Tang Dynasty (618-907AD), the Kaiyuan Temple is the oldest and largest Buddhist building in Fujian province. The 78,000 square meter site, legend has it, was once a mulberry grove. The owner of the trees dreamed one day that a Buddhist

  

monk asked him to build a temple here. The reluctant owner replied: "Only if the mulberry trees in my garden bear lotus flowers". A few days later, lotus lowers appeared in the grove... Today in the courtyard west of the main hall, an ancient mulberry tree has a sign on it that reads "Mulberry Lotus Tree".

In 783 during the Tang Kaiyuan period, the Emperor Xuangzong, a devout Buddhist, ordered the temple to be in his honor. Since then, the temple has shared the same high reputation as the Guangji Temple (Guangji si) in Beijing and Lingyin Temple (Lingyin si) in Hangzhou. It used to be home to 1000 monks.

The temple is highly regarded for its architecture: Its main hall "Precious Hall of the Great Hero" (Daxiong Baodian) or Mahavira Hall is also known as "The Great Hall of Purple Clouds". It is 20 odd meters high and is famous for its (almost) one hundred stone columns, each carved in a different style. On the crossbeams are carved 24 flying singers and dancers or "apsaras" resembling angels in Catholic churches.

There is an octonal five-storey stone pagodas on either side of the temple. The eastern one is called "Nation Protecting Pagoda" (Zhengguo ta), and the western, "Merits and Longevity pagoda" (Renshou ta). The twin pagodas were built in the 13th century and they are famous for their vivid sculptural details, exquisitely carved decorations, and inside, one of them has forty ancient Buddhist stories inscribed on its walls. Climbing up along the wood stairs to the top of either pagoda offers you the best bird's-eye-viewing point of Quanzhou city.

Behind the eastern pagoda, there is a museum exhibiting articles and pictures from Quanzhous magnificent past as one biggest sea ports in the world. Among the exhibits there is a wooden sailing vessel said to be from the twelfth or thirteenth century - an example of how far advanced Chinese shipbuilders were at that time. The vessel was found in 1974 (a series of photos detail the stages of the excavation), remnants of the herbs and spices it had been carrying were identified in its hold.
Notes:

1. Kaiyuan Temple 开元寺
2. The Great Hall of Purple Clouds 紫云大殿