The Shengji Bronze Bell (
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
: 聖積銅鐘;
pinyin Shèngjī Tóngzhōng) is a bronze temple bell that was formerly located at a Buddhist temple known as
Shengji Temple
''Sheng ji'' is a family of point-based, trick-taking card games played in China and in Chinese immigrant communities. They have a dynamic trump, i.e., which cards are trump changes every round. As these games are played over a wide area with no ...
on
Mount Emei in
Sichuan Province, China. It has been a Provincial-Level Protected Cultural Relic of Sichuan Province since 2002,
and a
Nationally Protected Cultural Relic of China since 2006.
History
The bell was created 1564, during the Ming dynasty. It was insribed with scriptural verses from the ''
Agama Scriptures'' and was hung in the Treasure Building of the Shengji temple in 1567. In 1913, Sichuan Military Governor
Yin Changheng
Yin Changheng (; July 11, 1884 – May 26, 1953) was a military leader in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. He was a member of the Tongmenghui, and on the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution he became one of the leaders of the revolutiona ...
ordered the bell to be melted to produce copper coins, but this did not occur. In 1959, the temple was destroyed, and the bell was kept in the ruins of the site. In 1966, during the
Cultural Revolution, the bell was sent to Chongqing to be melted down as part of the
four olds
The Four Olds or the Four Old Things () was a term used during the Cultural Revolution by the student-led Red Guards in the People's Republic of China in reference to the pre-communist elements of Chinese culture they attempted to destroy. The Fou ...
, but because it was too large to fit in the furnace, it survived yet again but was vandalized. In 1983, a new Pavillion was constructed to display the bell.
References
{{reflist
Major_National_Historical_and_Cultural_Sites_in_Sichuan