Opening hours of Yongji Pujiu Temple Tourist Area: 8:00-18:30 (summer) 8:00-18:00 (autumn)
Yongji Pujiu Temple Introduction to the attractions of the Temple Tourist Area:
It is located in the Emei Plateau in Yongji County in the southwest of Shanxi Province. It is adjacent to the ancient Puzhou City site in the south and Xixiang Village in the east. The temple site is high and full of pines and cypresses. It faces the Yellow River Bay in the west and the turbulent water. It faces Zhongtiao Mountain in the east and stands like a barrier, with a broad and open sight. A long, broad street with a sloped bottom under the plateau was the ancient post road leading to Chang'an. This is the place where the story of the famous Chinese historical drama "The Romance of the West Chamber" takes place. There is a square brick pagoda in the temple, formerly known as the Relic Pagoda and commonly known as the Yingying Pagoda. This pagoda, together with the Echo Wall of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, the Baolun Temple Pagoda in Henan, and the Shiqin in the Great Buddha Temple in Tongnan County, Sichuan, is known as the four major existing echo buildings in my country; the Shaking Tower in Shan State, Myanmar, and the Szolnok Pagoda in Hungary. The Music Tower, the Incense Tower in Marrakech, Morocco, the Clock Tower in Paris, France, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy are also known as the six most amazing towers in the world.
It is currently unknown when Pujiu Temple was built. However, it can be inferred from ancient book records and research on the cultural relics of monks that there was a Pujiu Temple in the early years of the Sui Dynasty. However, the name of the temple at that time was not Pujiu Temple, but Xiyongqingyuan. During the Tang Dynasty, the courtyard was greatly repaired. During the Five Dynasties, the Jiedushi envoys of Hedong rebelled. Liu Zhiyuan, the emperor of the Later Han Dynasty, sent Guo Wei to lead an army to conquer, but the attack could not be defeated for a long time. Guo Wei asked the monks for advice. The monk said that as long as you have a kind heart, the city can be captured. Guo Wei immediately broke his arrow and swore an oath that he would never harm the people. The next day, Guo Wei's army captured the city and kept their oath without killing anyone. Since then, Xiyongqingyuan has been renamed Pujiu Temple. In the Song Dynasty, Pujiu Temple was renovated again. In the 34th year of the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty (1555 AD), a major earthquake occurred in the area where Pujiu Temple is located. All the temple's halls, monks' houses, pavilions and pagodas were destroyed. Eight years later, in 1563 AD, the buildings of Pujiu Temple, including the Yingying Pagoda, were restored. In the Qing Dynasty, although Pujiu Temple was also repaired, by the end of the Qing Dynasty, the temple was very dilapidated. In 1920, it suffered another fire, and was later destroyed by the Japanese invaders. By 1949, only the Yingying Pagoda, stone lions, and Bodhisattva Cave were left in Pujiu Temple, and the other buildings no longer existed. In 1986, the government allocated millions of dollars to restore the Pujiu Temple. Today, Yingying Pagoda is surrounded by cloisters; on the Emei Plateau, palaces are scattered in an orderly manner, and monks' houses are lined up in rows. A Pujiu Temple, restored at the original site, has appeared again in the land of Sanjin.
The architecture of Pujiu Temple is magnificent, with winding red walls, towering ancient towers, and palaces looming among the green trees. The building of Pujiu Temple consists of two parts: the temple and the garden. The temple part is in the front and the garden part is in the back. On the mountain gate hangs a horizontal plaque with the name of the temple inscribed by Zhao Puchu, president of the Chinese Buddhist Association.
The temple buildings of Pujiu Temple are roughly distributed on three axes. From now on to the back, the buildings on the west axis include the Great Bell Tower, Pagoda Courtyard Corridor, Yingying Pagoda, Main Hall, and finally the garden; on the central axis there are the Tianwang Hall, Bodhisattva Cave, Amitabha Hall, Luohan Hall, Ten Kings Hall, and Sutra Pavilion; On the east axis there are the Qianmen, monks' dormitory, deadwood hall, Zhengfa Hall, Zhaitang, Xiangji Kitchen, etc. There are three stone Buddhas in the main hall. These three stone Buddhas are all standing statues. Among them, the statue of Sakyamuni Buddha is 3.9 meters high. They were all unearthed underground 33 meters behind the pagoda during the restoration of Pujiu Temple in the 1980s. Judging from the artistic style of the Buddha statue, it must be a work from the Northern and Southern Dynasties period. It is said that the other two Buddha statues had no heads when they were unearthed, and the heads of the current Buddha statues were added later. It is said that the villa garden was a Buddhist villa built by Cui Xiangguo in the Tang Dynasty, where the old lady and Yingying lived in "The Romance of the West Chamber". There is a Sutra Pavilion behind the Yingying Pagoda, and there are wing rooms on the east and west sides. The so-called West Wing Study is where it is said that Zhang Sheng came to Pujiu Temple to stay overnight when he traveled to Pudong. This West Chamber Academy is where the story of "The Romance of the West Chamber" takes place. Wait for the moon to fall in the west chamber, and the dusty door will open to the wind. The shadows of flowers brushing against the wall are moving, and it is suspected that a beautiful lady is coming. Zhang Sheng's study is under this west wing. He fell in love with Yingying for the first time and could not sit or lie restlessly. He was leaning against a deserted and old screen in front of a short green lantern. The lamp is dim and the dream is impossible; the wind blows lightly outside the window, and the ragged notes chirp; there is nothing on the pillow, but the bed is silent. You are a man of iron and stone, and a man of iron and stone is also emotional. Passing through the West Wing Academy is Cui Ju Courtyard. Behind the Cui Ju Courtyard is the garden, where Cui Yingying and Zhang Sheng had a tryst. In the garden, there are towering rockeries, rippling lakes, small bridges and flying beams, erected halls and pavilions, and red flowers and green trees everywhere, making lovers reluctant to leave.
The famous historical drama "The Romance of the West Chamber" describes the love story of Zhang Sheng and Cui Yingying. That year, Zhang Sheng went to Beijing to take the exam. On the way, he encountered rain and visited Pujiu Temple. By chance, I saw Cui Yingying who was stranded in the temple while helping her father's coffin return home. The two fell in love at first sight. Xixuan, where Zhang Sheng studied at that time, is on the west side of the Main Hall. The Lihua Deep Courtyard where Yingying lives with her mother and maid Matchmaker is on the east side of the Main Hall. Here is the place where Zhang Sheng jumped over the wall to meet the warblers, and there is also the apricot tree where Zhang Sheng stepped on the wall. Now along the paths that Zhang Sheng traveled, we have reconstructed the pear blossom courtyard, the bookstore, the back garden, the jumping wall, etc., and created a group of Buddha statues and wax figures of characters from "The Romance of the West Chamber" to reproduce the stunning, borrowing and troublemaking scenes according to the plot of "The Romance of the West Chamber". There are dramatic scenes such as fasting, staying in the apartment, getting married, listening to the piano, crossing the wall, and wearing red clothes.
The Yingying Pagoda stands majestically on the west side of Pujiu Temple. It is simple and dignified, and stands independently in the sky.
It was also destroyed in the great earthquake on the 34th day of the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty. What we see today was rebuilt in 1563 AD. The inside and outside of the pagoda are square, and the eaves are in the form of a slightly concave curve. These show that Yingying Pagoda retains some characteristics of Tang pagodas.
The Yingying Tower surrounded by cloisters is built of bricks. The whole tower has thirteen floors and is 36.76 meters high. The sudden contraction above the seventh floor makes the entire tower appear more agile. There are corridors connecting each floor in the tower, and ordinary people can go up to the ninth floor. However, the sixth and seventh floors cannot be directly connected. You must go down from the sixth floor to the fifth floor before you can go up. What is even more striking is that the Yingying Tower has a peculiar echo effect. When rocks are struck against each other near the tower, people at a certain location can hear echoes of croaking and croaking, similar to the croaking of frogs. It is said that the master craftsman put a golden toad inside when building the tower, but in fact the tower body was hollow. There is a frog-beating platform outside the corridor on the west side of Yingying Tower, which is the best place to hit rocks; there is a small pavilion on the hillside not far from the platform, called Frog-Crying Pavilion, which is the best place to listen to echoes similar to the chirping of frogs. place. Yingying Tower also has the functions of radio, bug and amplifier. Under the Yingying Tower, people can hear the singing and gongs and drums in Puzhou town 2.5 kilometers away from the tower, the sound of cars and tractors in nearby villages and towns, and the voices and laughter of people at home. , as well as the crowing of cocks and the barking of dogs. In addition, the sound of birds chirping under the tower becomes louder after being amplified by the Yingying Tower, and can be transmitted to far away places. Its echo mechanism mainly lies in three aspects: 1. The tower is hollow. If you stand on the middle floor of the tower and listen to the people above talking, the sound seems to come from below due to the acoustic reflection effect; 2. The complex structure on the tower eaves has a reflection effect; 3. Wall reflection. The Temple of Heaven Echo Gallery is mainly reflected through the wall. Therefore, when you hit the rocks and clap your hands around the tower, you can hear a clear echo of the frog sound; as the position changes, the echo of the frog sound can also change from the air or the ground.
Behind Pujiu Temple is a group of garden buildings, dotted with rockeries, bamboo forests, small bridges, and pools, as well as the imaginative Yingying Pavilion and the Moon Worship Platform. The scenery is beautiful and intoxicating. .