Yunju Temple () is a

Buddhist temple A Buddhist temple or Buddhist monastery is the place of worship for Buddhists, the followers of Buddhism. They include the structures called vihara, chaitya, stupa, wat and pagoda in different regions and languages. Temples in Buddhism represen ...

located in

Fangshan District Fangshan District () is situated in the southwest of Beijing, away from downtown Beijing. It has an area of and a population of 814,367 (2000 Census). The district is divided into 8 subdistricts, 14 towns, and 6 townships. The district administ ...

, southwest of

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

and contains the world's largest collection of stone Buddhist sutra steles in the world. Yunju Temple also contains one of only two extant woodblocks for the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka in the world as well as rare copies of printed and manuscript Chinese Buddhist Tripitakas. It also has many historic pagodas dating from the Tang and Liao Dynasty.

History

The exact year Yunju Temple was built is unknown; however construction started during the

Northern Qi Qi, known as the Northern Qi (), Later Qi (後齊) or Gao Qi (高齊) in historiography, was a Chinese imperial dynasty and one of the Northern dynasties during the Northern and Southern dynasties era. It ruled the eastern part of northern China ...

Dynasty (550 CE – 570 CE).Transl Around 611 CE, a high priest named

Jingwan Jingwan (; died 639) was a Buddhist monk who flourished in the 7th century, based at Yunju Temple, Fangshan, China. Inspired by apocalyptic stories of the decline of Buddhism, in about 609 CE he conceived a project to carve Buddhist sutras onto s ...

(? - 639 CE) made a vow to engrave Buddhist sutras on stone steles to insure Buddhism's future survival because of the challenges Chinese Buddhism had recently faced during the anti-Buddhist campaigns of

Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei ((北)魏太武帝, 408 – 11 March 452), personal name Tuoba Tao (拓拔燾), Xianbei name Büri(佛貍),佛貍 should actually be pronounced Büri, and meant "wolf" in the Xianbei language, 罗新：《北魏太武 ...

and

Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou ((北)周武帝) (543 – 21 June 578), personal name Yuwen Yong (宇文邕), Xianbei name Miluotu (禰羅突), was an emperor of the Xianbei-led Northern Zhou dynasty of China. As was the case of the reigns of his broth ...

.Shi 1991 Venerable Jingwan therefore set in motion a movement to engrave Buddhist sutras on stone steles that continued for over a thousand years; the last stone sutra stele engraved is dated to 1691 CE --- although by that time, the belief in the impending disaster of the Degenerate Age had subsided.CBETA The stone sutra steles varied in size and were engraved on both sides. In addition to text, they were also engraved sometimes with images of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas as well as Siddhaṃ Letters. The collection of stone sutra steles is also sometimes called the Fangshan Stone Sutra (Chinese: 房山石經). Venerable Jingwan initially vowed to engrave the entire Tripitaka; at least ten titles still survive today. His successors continued his work. One of them was involved in the engraving of the oldest extant copy (dated to 661 CE) of Tripitaka Master

Xuanzang Xuanzang (, ; 602–664), born Chen Hui / Chen Yi (), also known as Hiuen Tsang, was a 7th-century Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator. He is known for the epoch-making contributions to Chinese Buddhism, the travelogue of ...

’s 649 CE translation of the Heart Sutra. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, donors oftentimes determined which sutra to engrave on the stone stele; hence many sutras were engraved multiple times. Royal patronage began in the Sui Dynasty (see below for rediscovery of Buddha relics). During the

Tang Dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

, Princess Jinxian (ca. 713 - 755 CE) petitioned Emperor Xuanzong to donate over 4,000 manuscript scrolls of the Buddhist Tripitaka and land to support Yunju Temple's engraving of stone sutra steles. There is still a pagoda commemorating Princess Jinxian's support on the top of Fangshan mountain. During the

Liao Dynasty The Liao dynasty (; Khitan: ''Mos Jælud''; ), also known as the Khitan Empire (Khitan: ''Mos diau-d kitai huldʒi gur''), officially the Great Liao (), was an imperial dynasty of China that existed between 916 and 1125, ruled by the Yelü ...

, royal patronage attempted to complete the engraving of the incomplete Mahayana sutras and missing Mahayana titles. Also during this time, royal patronage attempted to engrave on stone stele the entire Liao Dynasty's Khitan Tripitaka (). Because the Sui and Tang Dynasty manuscripts on which the Sui and

stone steles were based as well as the printed copies of the Khitan Tripitaka on which the Liao Dynasty stone sutras were based have largely disappeared, this makes the Fangshan stone sutras of Yunju Temple a rare treasure house of Buddhist sutras. Since these stone steles were engraved with an eye on fidelity to the original, they can be used to potentially correct later printed Tripitakas. Since Venerable Jingwan's time a total of nine caves were excavated and filled with stone sutra steles, two underground depository rooms were also excavated and numerous temple halls were added and repaired. The most famous cave is Cave No. 5 popularly known as Leiyin Cave (). This cave is opened for public viewing and is a large cave covered with stone sutra steles on four walls with an area for Buddhist ceremonies. Formerly a statue of Maitreya, the next Buddha was enshrined here but it was removed by unknown persons during the early 1940s. In the early 1940s, a significant portion of the temple was destroyed; however substantial portions have since been restored.Liao & Pin (2006), 25. Based on inscriptions on a stone stele found in a refreshment/rest stop pavilion donated by a Ming Dynasty Buddhist stating the presence of Buddha relics or

śarīra Śarīra is a generic term referring to Buddhist relics, although in common usage it usually refers to pearl or crystal-like bead-shaped objects that are purportedly found among the cremated ashes of Buddhist spiritual masters. Relics of the Bu ...

in Leiyin Cave, on November 27, 1981, archaeologists rediscovered the flesh śarīra (of Buddha) donated by Emperor

Yangdi Emperor Yang of Sui (隋煬帝, 569 – 11 April 618), personal name Yang Guang (), alternative name Ying (), Xianbei name Amo (), also known as Emperor Ming of Sui () during the brief reign of his grandson Yang Tong, was the second emperor of ...

of the

Sui Dynasty The Sui dynasty (, ) was a short-lived imperial dynasty of China that lasted from 581 to 618. The Sui unified the Northern and Southern dynasties, thus ending the long period of division following the fall of the Western Jin dynasty, and layi ...

dated to the 8th day of the 4th lunar month 616 CE.

Collection

There are also over 22,000 scrolls of rare printed or manuscript sutras kept at Yunju Temple. The Ming Dynasty's Yongle Southern Tripitaka (1420 CE) and Yongle Northern Tripitaka (1440 CE) are stored here as well as individual printed sutras and manuscripts. In total, 1,122 Buddhist sutras in 3572 volumes were produced at the temple consisting of over 14,200 stone steles engraved on both sides. Yunju Temple also has one of only two extant complete woodblocks of the Chinese Tripitaka in the world: namely the Qianlong Tripitaka (1733). Carved on over 77,000 blocks, it attracts a large number of visitors.The other extant complete woodblock of the Chinese Tripitaka is located in Korea in

Haeinsa Haeinsa (해인사, 海印寺: Temple of the Ocean Mudra) is a head temple of the Jogye Order (대한불교조계종, 大韓佛敎曹溪宗) of Korean Seon Buddhism in Gayasan National Park (가야산, 伽倻山), South Gyeongsang Province, So ...

(see also

Tripitaka Koreana The (lit. ) or ("Eighty-Thousand ''Tripiṭaka''") is a Korean collection of the (Buddhist scriptures, and the Sanskrit word for "three baskets"), carved onto 81,258 wooden printing blocks in the 13th century. It is the oldest intact vers ...

) Yunju Temple also has two bone relics of

the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...

(

) available for public viewing.

Layout

There were originally six halls in the temple, arranged from east to west. On both sides of the halls, there was accommodation for guests and dormitories for monks. The temple contains a total of twelve

pagoda A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist but sometimes Taoist, ...

s from the

Tang Tang or TANG most often refers to: * Tang dynasty * Tang (drink mix) Tang or TANG may also refer to: Chinese states and dynasties * Jin (Chinese state) (11th century – 376 BC), a state during the Spring and Autumn period, called Tang (唐) b ...

and Liao dynasties and three tomb pagodas from the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

. File:Sakyamuni Palace of Yunju Temple (20150223135600).JPG, Sakyamuni Palace File:Drum Tower of Yunju Temple (20150223134911).JPG, Yunju's Drum Tower File:Taiji Pagoda of Yunju Temple, 2016-09-08.jpg, Taiji Pagoda File:Kaiyuan Pagoda 2 of Yunju Temple, 2016-09-08.jpg, Kaiyuan Pagoda File:Jingyun Pagoda of Yunju Temple, 2016-09-08.jpg, Jingyun Pagoda File:Fangshan stone sutra sanskrit mantra.jpg, Sanskrit Mantra, part of the Liao-Jin Fangshan Stone Sutra collection

Notes

References

Sources

* *Dan Jixiang and Wang Fengjiang (Eds), 2001. ''Fang Shan Yu Ju Temple Liao Jin Stone Sutras Preservation Record'', No ISBN. In Chinese. *Lan Jifu (Ed), 1985. ''Supplement to the Dazangjing (Tripitaka)'', Taipei: Huayu Publishing Co., In Chinese. *Lancaster, Lewis, 1996
Rock Cut Canon in China
''The Rock Cut Canon in China : Findings at Fang-Shan'' *Liao Pin and Wu Wen. ''The Temples of Beijing''. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2006. * *
Pagoda, Library Caves and Stone Tablets of sutra of Yunju Temple - UNESCO World Heritage Centre
Pagoda, Library Caves and Stone Tablets of Sutra of Yunju Temple – UNESCO World Heritage Center. {{authority control Buddhist temples in Beijing Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Beijing Chinese Buddhist grottoes Chinese sculpture Buildings and structures in Fangshan District