Inside the Hall of the Great Hero, murals are painted on the surrounding walls, which are brightly colored and well preserved. This painting is 6.4 meters high and covers an area of 887.25 square meters. The content of the mural is to publicize the legendary stories of Buddhism, including the stories of Buddhist preaching and preaching, fifty-three children who are good at money, Guanyin worshipped by the boy, arhat figure and Guanyin with thousands of hands and eyes, which is very charming. According to the inscription on the wall, these murals were painted by a group of craftsmen such as Dong 'an in Zhonglou Street, Datong City during the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty.
The ceiling of Daxiong Hall also has attractive charm and is a rare artistic treasure. These ceilings are painted with circular patterns and filled with dragon, wind and flower patterns, totaling 73 pieces. In the north of the entrance to the temple, there are four stone tablets embedded in the wall, engraved with stone carvings and calligraphy. This is the Book of Changes written by Zhu, a famous philosopher and writer in the Song Dynasty. Stepping out of the platform, Huayan Temple, located in the southeast of Shangsi, is located in the south of the downstairs and is also a house divided into two. The front yard is wide and the backyard is compact, with wings and corridors. Starting from the front yard, you can climb fifteen steps and cross the wooden archway, which is the backyard. In front of the high platform, there is a deer on the left and right, and there are three rooms on the left and right. The cultural relics of Datong Museum are now on display for visitors. The wing is a typical building in Qing Dynasty. The backyard sits west to east, with the main hall in the middle, which is called the Bhagavad gita Tibetan Hall. The end of the hall is tall and straight, and the plaque is engraved with the four characters "Bhagavan teaches Tibet". "Bhagava" is a transliteration of Indian Sanskrit, which means Buddha. "Bhagavan" is Buddhism, "Bhagavan Zang" is Buddhist scriptures, and the Bhagavan Zang Hall is a hall dedicated to storing Buddhist scriptures.
Pujiajiao Tibetan Hall was built in the 7th year of Chongxi in Liao Dynasty (AD 1038), with five halls 26.65m wide and four halls 20. 1 m deep. The roof is a single-eave nine-ridge wing flying type, with clear primary and secondary, simple temple scenery, which is the product of the combination of traditional wooden structure and bucket arch structure in China.
Entering the Bhagavad-gita Tibetan Hall, the momentum is quite different from that of Shangsi Daxiong Hall. Daxiong Hall is colorful, bright and magnificent; This temple is antique and solemn. In the center of the hall, there is a Buddhist altar. In the center above the altar, three giant buddhas sit on the lotus seat, with a natural expression and a subtle and solemn expression. These three giant buddhas are called "three buddhas"-past buddhas, present buddhas and future buddhas. The statue of 365,438+0 in Liao Dynasty is well preserved in the sutra depository of Bhagavad-gita school, with skillful craftsmanship. This scene depicts the Buddha's lecture to his disciples. Disciples, boy support, Buddha and Bodhisattva are all listening, and the Buddha's lecture has aroused repercussions in the disciples' pious hearts, as if they were thinking and understanding with their eyes closed. Some don't understand, some don't seem to understand, and some seem to understand the true meaning of Buddhism. Different expressions, lifelike. On both sides, the four heavenly kings are protecting the Buddha and giving lectures. These Bodhisattvas and Buddha statues have vivid expressions, natural postures, beautiful shapes and symmetrical arrangement, which can be called the treasures of ancient clay sculptures in China. Among them, there is a mighty Buddha, with his hands crossed, showing his teeth and depicting delicate characters. This bodhisattva, with a slightly naked upper body, gorgeous headdress, long braids hanging from the shoulders, a full moon, graceful and plump, stands barefoot on the lotus platform, and is very outstanding and moving under the smooth and free streamer. Comrade Guo Moruo once praised this bodhisattva as the best of all tooth bodhisattvas in China. It can be seen how superb the technology of the shaper is.
There is also a touching story about the origin of this bodhisattva: this clay sculpture has no strict performance of Buddhism, no graceful charm of court women, but has a natural and smooth beauty of folk girls. It is said that this is indeed a model of a clay sculpture artist based on a girl. At that time, in order to build the next Huayan Temple, the emperor ordered thousands of skilled craftsmen from all over the country to gather in Datong. One of them, a young clay sculptor from Liangzhou, also applied all the way to the cloud. The government collected many local houses and let a large number of craftsmen live in them. In order to prevent the craftsmen from escaping, the government issued a Jiabao order, all the craftsmen fled and the landlord's family was beheaded. Craftsmen are generally reluctant to run away for fear of hurting the innocent. Young craftsmen from Liangzhou were assigned to live in an abandoned yard, with only their father and daughter. The landlord's father and daughter live together, and his father is ill. The young craftsmen are very sympathetic to the plight of the father and daughter. They not only often help them with their work, but also teach them clay figurine skills. Because the clay figurines squeezed out are real, adults and children are rushing to buy them, and the father and daughter will soon make a fortune. In order to repay the kindness of the craftsman, the father and the daughter intend to let the craftsman run away quietly, and then they fly away. After telling this idea to the young craftsman, the young craftsman shook his head and declined, fearing that his father and daughter would escape and that they would be caught and executed by the government when they fled back to their hometown. At the same time, because he likes the landlord's daughter, he doesn't want to leave this girl as beautiful as flowers and pure as jade. One year passed, another year passed, and the main hall of Xiahuayan Temple was completed. When entering the statue stage, the young craftsman received an instruction to shape a threatened female bodhisattva, which worried unmarried young people. Because according to the custom of building temples and statues in Liao Dynasty at that time, the female threatened bodhisattva was naked with only a few streamers on her body. At that time, clay sculptures were all made by imagination, and only men were shaped according to real people. A married craftsman can make a female figure according to the figure of his wife and daughter, but this young craftsman is homeless, and the model figures squeezed out by imagination are nothing like it. As the days passed, the days set by the government were getting closer and closer, and the young craftsmen were sad all day and didn't think about tea and rice. Seeing his mind, the father and the daughter called him to the front and asked him repeatedly. The young craftsman was asked by them and had to tell his difficulties in detail. After hearing this, the father called his daughter aside and whispered, only to see her running away with a red face. The old landlord opened the window for the young craftsman and said that he was willing to give his daughter to him as his wife, thus fulfilling his great event. The young craftsman had this idea for a long time, so he quickly bowed down and called himself his father-in-law. On the same day, he married the bride. The little craftsman made a villain according to his wife's figure and an adult according to the villain.
When the day of completion came, craftsmen wrapped their clay sculptures tightly in yellow robes, just waiting for the emperor's sacred eyes to browse. This day has finally arrived. The craftsmen untied their yellow robes to show their true colors for the emperor to appreciate. When the statue carved by the small craftsman was found, the official who presided over the construction of the temple looked pale. It turns out that the Buddha is actually showing his teeth, which is forbidden by Buddhism. His legs trembled for fear that the emperor would blame him. Who knows, the emperor walked up to the bodhisattva, staring at it, full of praise, forgetting that it was clay sculpture, and actually raised his hand to let her down to talk. The big officer who was scared white slowly became bloodless. Because the emperor didn't blame it, this statue has been handed down from generation to generation until today.
The statue of the Liao Dynasty in the Bhagavad-gita Sutra Pavilion was originally beautifully painted, but it has become antique due to the influence of incense in previous dynasties.
There are 38 pavilions around the temple. There are five wooden palaces and pavilions in the back window, which are connected by arch bridges. The pavilion is exquisitely carved, exquisite and changeable, which shows the inheritance of Liao architecture from Tang architecture. It is the only existing wooden structure model of Liao Dynasty in China, and it has important scientific research value. Known as "orphans in the sea" by the late famous architect Liang Sicheng. There are more than 700 copies of 1.800 volumes of Tibetan scriptures in the Ming and Qing Dynasties in the Tibetan Classics Pavilion, including more than 700 copies of 1.700 volumes of Buddhist scriptures carved in Yongle and Wanli periods in the Ming Dynasty, and the cover of Buddhist scriptures is mounted with silk cotton, which is the top grade of Buddhist scriptures. In addition, there is a set of complete works of Long Zang in Qing Dynasty, which is also a rare book. A stone tablet under the porch is engraved with the calligraphy and poems of Wen Zhiming, a famous artist, writer and poet in Ming Dynasty.