Chongshan Temple

Chongshan Temple is located in Shangguan Lane in the east of Taiyuan. It is only one road away from the Shanxi Provincial Folk Museum. There is a quite quiet alley in front of the door. The temple was built at the end of the Sui Dynasty and the beginning of the Tang Dynasty. It was originally the residence of Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty. In the 14th year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1381 AD), the third son of Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Ho, commemorated his mother, Queen Ma, on the basis of the original temple. Expanded. The scale of the expanded temple is quite large and its appearance is also very prominent. In the third year of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty (1864 AD), Chongshan Temple was destroyed by a fire, and now only the Dabei Hall, the mountain gate, the bell tower and the east and west wing rooms remain. Chongshan Temple is now the seat of the Shanxi Provincial Buddhist Association. The whole temple has red walls and green tiles, simple and elegant, and a pair of bronze lions in front of the temple gate were all cast in the Ming Dynasty. The Hall of Great Compassion is the main building in the temple. This is a typical Ming Dynasty-style building. The three statues in the hall are more famous, namely, the Thousand Hands, Thousand Eyes and 11 Faces Avalokitesvara, Thousand Bowls Manjushri and Puxian Bodhisattva. These three statues are Unique in shape, gorgeous in color and smooth in lines, it is a rare art treasure of the Ming Dynasty. There are also a large number of Song, Yuan and Ming editions of Tibetan scriptures in Chongshan Temple, which are of great value.