Chapter 68 Aesthetic feelings during inspection

There are several temples on the cliffs on both sides of the Yudao River.The real temple on Dongyan is famous for its beautiful scenery.The Dragon King Temple on the top of the mountain has enjoyed thousands of years of incense because of the horse running spring.At the south end of Xiyan is the Guandi Temple, which has been built several times with mixed styles.At the north end of Xiyan is the Longtian Temple, which looks a bit larger in scale, so they chose this place for investigation. Looking from a distance, the Longtian Temple has uneven structure and shape, proper size, and beautiful balance. The masonry walls are mellow in color, mostly red and yellow, and they are drunk with the mountains and fields in the sun, which is very eye-catching.

The temple is on the hillside, away from the village people.An old pine tree in front of the gate stands silently like a monk guarding the gate.The temple gate is closed every day, and it is rarely open.The folk customs in this area are simple and simple, and it has become a habit not to pick up lost things on the road, and not to close the door at night.The closed temple gate is just a form, in fact, people can come and go as they please. When they entered the temple, the huge courtyard that had not been lit for a long time was empty, with withered pine and grass, accompanied by the stone steps of the hall, it looked barren and mysterious.The Bell and Drum Tower is mainly made of brick and stone, unlike other places where the wooden structure is mainly used.The left and right sides of the main hall are brick kiln houses for monks to live in.

Fairbank said that the flat-roofed kiln house resembles the flat-roofed earthen house of the Mexican Indians. People live in the house, and the roof can be dried or planted. The scenery has a unique style. Outside the front hall of the main hall is an open hall, which is called the "food shed", also known as the sacrificial hall or the front hall, but other places are usually not open. The main hall is the main building of this temple.The bucket arches on the front eaves of the hall are of great balance, the height of the bucket arches is about a quarter of the height of the columns, and the layout is also sparse and gratifying.However, if you look closely at the carvings on the brackets, you can see that they are grotesque, and there is no quiet ancient atmosphere.

There are three main halls, with statues of Longtian and his wife, and a stele of the 12th year of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty under the corridor.They learned from the inscription that the Longtian Temple was rebuilt in the Dinghai period of the Yuan Dynasty, and the current buildings are all new structures in the Qianlong period. Sicheng and Huiyin drew the floor plan, copied the inscription, took photos, and left Longtian Temple.They concluded that although the temple is not very old and its architectural structure is unremarkable, it is overall beautiful and neat, and can be regarded as a representative work of small temple groups in southern Shanxi.

The days after that were not so easy.They traveled all over Wenshui, Fenyang, Xiaoyi, Jiexiu, Lingshi, Huo County, Zhaocheng and other counties. "Compared with ordinary cities, there are at least two centuries of difference between living in wind and rain, living a hard and simple life."But the harvest is also huge, "there are no less than thirty or forty ancient structures we refer to, relics of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, and we can meet them anywhere." When inspecting the ancient buildings in these places, in addition to the scientific and meticulous investigation records, Huiyin also wrote down her aesthetic feelings during the inspection in a poetic style in the inspection papers.At Lingyan Temple in Xiaoxiang Village, Fenyang County, she was shocked by several Buddha statues sitting in the open air in the ruins:

Entering the gate, you can only see mounds of rubble and mounds, full of desolation, the ruins of the Temple of Heaven in the middle, raised like a tomb, and the atmosphere is majestic... Going further into another mound, it should be the original front hall—two iron Buddhas sitting in the open air in the middle, with a statue in the middle The big rosette; a glimpse of the setting sun, interesting and moving, pedestrians are tired of traveling, so far they have a few moments of enlightenment and enter a new realm.Then it will be the site of the main hall. The towers in the background are getting closer, and there are three iron Buddhas, sitting in the same position as before.At this time, the distant mountains are clear at night, the sky is like a universe, the two sites are not palaces but palaces, solemn and beautiful, without borrowing Liang Dong's paintings, the worshipers are more silent and reverent, and they can't help themselves. ...

In Dongyue Temple in Wutun Village, Xiaoyi County, she mocked the complex decorative structure of the temple roof in a joking tone: the corridor of the main hall of Dongyue Temple at the east gate of the night night village; The structure is peculiar and the roof is complicated, which is the worst among the temples we have seen in Shanxi.The small hall faces the east gate, and sits in the middle of the field, like a country bride, with a hair full of flowers, looking like she is going back to the gate. ...