Wanju Temple was built in the Tang Dynasty and named Juse Temple. It was rebuilt in the fifth year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty (1577), funded by Cisheng Li Taihou, the mother of Emperor Wanli, and built by Governor Feng Bao, the etiquette supervisor. It was renamed Manjuji and became a royal temple. It was mainly used as a scroll of Tibetan scriptures, and then it was moved to Fanjing Factory and Han Jing Factory in a coiled way, so Manjuji became the palace where the Ming emperors dined and rested on their way to the West Lake (Kunming Lake). In the Qing Dynasty, it was rebuilt and expanded several times. During the Qianlong period, the West Road was changed into a palace, which became a grand royal palace. In the 16th and 26th years of Qing Qianlong, Emperor Gaozong Li Hong of the Qing Dynasty celebrated his mother's birthday here twice. In the 20th year of Guangxu in Qing Dynasty (1894), Empress Dowager Cixi rebuilt the Manjuji Palace, and added a thousand Buddha pavilions and dressing rooms in the Western Cross, forming the final pattern. At that time, when Cixi traveled back and forth between the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City, she would burn incense and worship Buddha in Manjuji and drink tea in the palace of the West Courtyard, so it was called Xiao Ningshou Palace. Around 1934, the front of Manjuji was once turned into a school for children of refugees in Northeast China. 1985, Zhonglu was opened as Beijing Art Museum.
Full house, deep courtyard, spacious building, magnificent building, jade building, extremely magnificent. In the meantime, there are winding corridors, imperial book pavilions, bluestone rockeries, ancient underground palaces and pine and cypress scattered, covering an area of more than 30,000 square meters. The temple is divided into east, middle and west roads. The middle road is the main building, which enters the courtyard of the mountain gate, followed by the Heavenly King Hall, the Ursa Major Hall (that is, the Great Yanshou Hall), the Changshou Pavilion, the Great Zen Hall, the Imperial Monument Pavilion, the Infinite Life Buddha Hall, and the Wanshou Building. On both sides of each hall, there are attached halls and rooms. East Road is the abbot's courtyard and garden, which is the living area of monks. West Road was changed into a palace during the Qianlong period.
There is a long river running in front of the temple, and there used to be a pier. At the end of spring and the beginning of summer, Empress Dowager Cixi took the waterway from the Forbidden City to the Summer Palace, where she disembarked for a short rest.
Above the gate of Manjuji Mountain, there is a stone tablet given by the emperor Shunzhi in the second year of Qing Dynasty, which reads "Building Manjuji to protect the country". Brick carvings with walls and shadow walls on both sides of the mountain gate are rare works of art with fine composition. Chest-high walls and tiger skin bases on both sides, white walls, bright colors.
The entrance is Tianwang Temple. Left bell tower in front of the temple, right drum tower. The Yongle Bell, known as "Zhong Wang", once hung here. After eight years of Qianlong, he moved to Juesheng Temple (Dazhong Temple). Crossing the Heavenly King Hall is the Hall of the Great Hero, which contains three Buddha statues, eighteen arhats and an inverted Guanyin clay sculpture. On the gold pillars on both sides, there are couplets written by Emperor Qianlong: "Don't give up the smoke in the lamp; The flower stone outside the cool world is as true as it is. " In order to compliment Cixi, the eunuch Li of the Qing Dynasty specially made a statue of Guanyin resembling Cixi, hence the name "Lafayette". Now, this Guanyin statue is still placed behind the III Buddha statue.
The Wanshou Pavilion behind the main hall was rebuilt in recent years, and the original pavilion was destroyed by fire in the Republic of China. The big meditation hall behind the pavilion is a place to give lectures. Behind the hall are rockeries and rocks, and pines and cypresses are vigorous, all of which are century-old trees. After the Great Zen Hall, he was the last one to enter the hospital. There is a rockery in it, symbolizing the three Buddhist mountains of Putuo, Emei and Liang Qing. There are three halls of scholars on the mountain, with Guanyin as the main hall, Manjusri on the left and Pu Xian on the right. Behind the mountain, there are two ancient ginkgo trees on both sides, and the vicissitudes of life are towering into the sky. Then there are Qianlong Imperial Monument Pavilion, Infinite Life Buddha Hall, Guangxu Imperial Monument Pavilion, Thousand Buddha Pavilion and so on. There are two original foreign-style doors on both sides of the Infinite Buddha Hall, which were built during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty and are the same age as the West Building of Yuanmingyuan. They are the products of the combination of Chinese and Western styles. The partition door is connected with the climbing veranda and pavilion on the west road, and also connected with the earth mountain covered with trees on the east road.
West Road is part of the Imperial Palace, which was built during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. There are four small courtyards in the front, which are divided into two by the middle passage. On the left is the longevity dining room, on the right is the longevity teahouse, and behind it is the palace of the emperor and empress dowager. There are climbing corridors on both sides of the back of the hall, and you can go to the back building through the pavilion. According to legend, Empress Dowager Cixi changed clothes here in the late Qing Dynasty, so it was called "dressing room". Then there is the Hall of Mercy and its affiliated buildings. There is a well pavilion in the courtyard, which is specially designed for the emperor to give lectures. East road is the abbot's courtyard. In front, there is a big Zhai Tang, a big kitchen and a monk's house. There are Zhaitang, Yuqian and Nanfang in the middle. After fasting, there are heaped mountains. Finally, the single hospital.
Beijing Art Museum is a comprehensive art museum, "hidden" in this famous ancient temple. At present, there are nearly 50 thousand ancient works of art, from primitive society to Ming and Qing Dynasties, especially in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The collection has a wide range, mainly including calligraphy and painting, inscriptions and celebrity letters, court embroidery, court porcelain, ancient furniture, coins and seals of past dynasties, etc. Others, such as bronzes, jade articles, bamboo horns, Buddha statues, snuff bottles and so on, are too numerous to mention. Calligraphy and painting were handed down from generation to generation by masters such as Qi Baishi, Zhang Daqian and Xu Beihong. The art museum also has a collection of100000 ancient books from the Song Dynasty to the Republic of China.