Suzhou, an ancient city, attaches great importance to the historical sites of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Many blocks, houses and sightseeing places have the shadow of Ming and Qing architecture. There are not many ancient buildings in Ming dynasty, and the structure of Song dynasty is especially precious in Suzhou. This is a gift to survive in the right place and at the right time.
The twin-tower courtyard in Dinghui Temple Lane is quiet, and there are several relics of the Song Dynasty in this small world, which is a rare treasure.
Song stele, in the first courtyard of the Twin Towers, has a circle of stele gallery, which contains inscriptions of Southern Song Dynasty, Ming Dynasty, Qing Dynasty and modern times, and records the rise and fall history of Luohan Academy, which is both a document and a cultural relic. On the west side of the stele gallery, there are inscriptions on the memorial hall of Shouning Long Live Temple in Song and Wu counties.
The monument was originally in the Lohan Academy of the Twin Towers, which stood in the Song Dynasty and has gone through thousands of years. Unearthed in the backyard in the 1950s. Historical materials are informative, recording the maintenance of the Twin Towers and Lohan Courtyard, presiding over monks, etc. Many information about the history of Lohan Courtyard in later generations comes from this. Its writing style is unique, it is official script, written by local scholars, and its calligraphy is beautiful and well preserved, which is a rare masterpiece.
In addition to this stone tablet in the Song Dynasty, there are also some inscriptions in Jiajing and Qing Dynasties, including text content and calligraphy and painting. What is particularly interesting is a monument in the Qing Dynasty with a slender crown. It is said that Li Lanqing, a student of Jiangsu provincial judge Qing Daoguang Weng Fanggang, carved stones according to the portrait of Su Dongpo collected by his teacher.
At present, famous paintings about Su Shi's appearance include "Fu Tu Hou Chi Bi" by Qiao Zhongchang in Song Dynasty, and Li Yuan Tu copied by Zhu Lin, the top scholar in Ming Dynasty, collected by Weng Fanggang in Qing Dynasty, which is comparable to Su Shi's self-reported image in poetry.
The Twin Towers, synonymous with this temple in Song Dynasty, is a symbol of an ancient Suzhou. The Twin Towers in Suzhou face east and west. During the Five Dynasties and the Song Dynasty, the tower-building system was popular in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. Suzhou Luohanyuan Twin Towers, as pagodas built in the early Northern Song Dynasty, reflect the construction methods in this period.
One of the twin towers is called stupa, and the other is called Gongde stupa. According to documents, during Jiajing period of Ming Dynasty, torch tower, relics and miscellaneous treasures were in one tower. At present, there is no difference in appearance between the two towers, both of which are brick towers imitating wooden towers. The diameter of the tower is small, and the height of the tower gate is high, forming an exquisite and beautiful style as a whole.
The interiors of these two towers are not open to the outside now. From the outside, we can see that the interior is narrow. In Liu Dunzhen's report, it is pointed out that the height of each floor in the tower does not follow certain rules, and the second floor is the highest. The stairs in the tower were destroyed during the Republic of China. These two exquisite brick pagodas are typical southern pagodas in the early Song Dynasty, and some architectural techniques of the Tang Dynasty are still preserved in the structures such as towers, columns and brakes, which are treasures in the eyes of architects.
In the Song Dynasty, there was a site in the north of the Twin Towers, on which stood many stone pillars, surrounded by bluestone foundations, columns, thresholds and other structures. This is the site of the main hall of Luohanyuan in the Song Dynasty.
The main hall and the Twin Towers were built at the same time in the early Northern Song Dynasty. According to the literature records and the analysis of the existing structure of the site, the main hall at that time should be square concave, and the original appearance should be built with a single eaves and a single hill.
Several existing stone pillars on the site have different ages. According to experts' appraisal, the two carved lotus figures in the middle are relics of the Northern Song Dynasty, with elegant composition and smooth lines, which can be called fine architectural stone carvings in the Song Dynasty. There are also five octagonal stone pillars on the site, and the pattern of begonia was carved into eight petals, which may have been replaced during the renovation of Jiajing.
As the only architectural site of the Song Dynasty protected as a cultural relic in Suzhou, it is rare that the stone pillars and foundations of the Song Dynasty remain on it. The existing site of the main hall of Luohan Garden is lush with green grass, and the stone pillars thousands of years ago are arranged in their original positions, showing a complete and real grandeur as a whole.
Luohan statue in Song Dynasty. There are several Luohan statues in the exhibition hall on the east side of the first courtyard of the Twin Towers in the Song Dynasty. They were unearthed when cleaning up the ruins of the Twin Towers in the last century, with a total of nine remnants.
These Luohan statues should be enshrined in the main hall of Luohan Courtyard, and one of them is relatively complete. From the perspective of modeling and carving techniques, it still inherits some elements of the late Tang Dynasty, but the characters have obviously changed from fat to thin. There are also a number of Song Dynasty stone carvings on display in the Stone Carving Museum, which were also cast by Wu Kang Stone Carvings in the Song Dynasty. These stone carvings collected in Jiangxi and Zhejiang are much more exquisite.