Following the Song Dynasty system, this small town hides the most beautiful Yuan Dynasty architecture in Henan!

Following the Song Dynasty system, this small town hides the most beautiful Yuan Dynasty architecture in Henan! Jiyuan City, the smallest city in Henan, is located on the west side of Jiaozuo. Although it is small, it is full of well-preserved ancient buildings. After experiencing the regret of the second station, the Daxu Village Erxian Temple, which was mentioned in the first few issues, seemed to be about to collapse, but the arch carving was beautiful. The second station we came to was Daming Temple, which hides the most beautiful Yuan Dynasty wooden architecture I have seen in Henan so far. Not only does it follow the Song Dynasty's construction system, but the internal structure also retains the rugged characteristics of the Yuan Dynasty's beam frame. What first attracted me to Daming Temple was not the ancient architecture itself, but a giant tree that can be seen at a glance after entering the mountain gate (Figure 2). This giant tree almost completely blocks the Yuan Dynasty Buddha Hall behind it. It is not an ordinary tree, but a thousand-year-old Shala tree. The Shala tree is the sacred tree of the Buddha's Nirvana in the legend, and it is called the 'Three Treasures of the Buddha Country' together with the Bodhi tree and the Bay tree. The Shala tree in Daming Temple is the most lush one in Henan. The circumference is 2.94 meters and the height is more than 20 meters. It can be said that it has fully witnessed the rise and fall and history of Daming Temple. Speaking of the Buddha Hall, it is the earliest existing building in the temple, rebuilt during the Yuan Dynasty (1264-1294 AD), a large hall that took thirty years to build. It is one of the four Yuan Dynasty single-wood structure buildings with the highest architectural purity in Henan Province. How to reflect the Yuan Dynasty craft style? The beam frame is rugged, the wood is used naturally, and the construction is natural, the style is natural, simple and vivid. The Buddha Hall's bucket arch is like a knife, gun, sword, and halberd, which is amazing. How is the Song Dynasty's legacy reflected? The beam frame in the hall reduces the column structure, the front groove does not apply the golden column, the space appears particularly open, the plane is square, the single beam frame, also inherits and retains the architectural art of the Song Dynasty. In addition, the Buddha Hall built in the Ming Dynasty is also a major highlight. The beam frame in the hall is colorful (Figure 18), which is the best-preserved Qing Dynasty beam frame painting in Henan Province and has high artistic value. The history of Daming Temple is very rough, and it is very lucky that she can still be seen by the world after being devastated. The earliest Daming Temple can be traced back to the early Western Han Dynasty. In 187 BC, Empress Lv sealed Liu Zhao, the son of Emperor Hui of Han, as the Marquis of Zhi. The Marquis of Zhi set up an ancestral temple on the east bank of the Tugou River. The predecessor of Daming Temple was the Fenxiu Xiangyuan used by Marquis Zhi Liu Zhao for ancestor worship. During the reign of Song Renzong, the ancient Zhihou ancestral temple, as a carrier of Confucian thought, was renamed Tonghui Zen Temple after reconstruction. The Yuan Dynasty stele 'Daming En Gong Qinde Stele' currently standing in the temple records the history of that year. According to the stele, Tonghui Zen Temple experienced wars in the late Jin Dynasty, 'after the war, it turned into a mound.' Until the fourteenth year of the Yuan Dynasty, the temple was rebuilt and renamed Daming Temple.