China - Beijing - Fayuan Temple

The Buddha statue of the Pilu Hall in the Fayuan Temple.

Sent by Nic from China.

Fayuan Temple (Temple of the Origin of the Dharma) is situated in the south of Jiaozi Hutong, Xicheng District of Beijing. With a long history of more than 1,300 years, it is the oldest Buddhist temple in Beijing. In addition, the Buddhist Academy of China and Buddhist Library and Museum of China are located inside, making it an important place to study the Buddhist culture and cultivate young monks. With its time-honored history, distinctive cultural significance as well as the rich historical relics displayed, the temple is greatly appreciated by visitors. In 2000, the Taiwanese writer Li Ao published a novel, "Martyrs' Shrine: the Story of the Reform Movement of 1898 in China" (another name is Beijing Fayuan Si), set right in this temple, which made the temple even more famous. Since then, more and more Buddhist believers as well as tourists come to visit it year after year.

Fayuan Temple was originally built to mourn the dead soldiers by Emperor Taizong (598-649) of the Tang Dynasty (618-907). When finished in 696, Empress Wu Zetian (624-705) gave it the name Minzhong Temple, which means a temple to mourn the late loyal people. However, due to flood, earthquake, war and other damages, the temple has been destroyed, rebuilt, and renamed several times. It was not until the Emperor Yongzheng's throne in the Qing Dynasty (1636-1912) that it was greatly repaired and then renamed as Fayuan Temple, which has been retained to the present day. In fact, since the temple was first built to recall the dead soldiers, there were several loyal people who were associated to it in different dynasties. During the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), Xie Fangde (1226-1289), official of the fallen former Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), starved himself to death in the temple as he would not surrender to the new rulers. In the late Qing Dynasty, after the leaders of the Reform Movement in 1898 had been killed, their coffins were stored in this temple for some time. For more than a thousand years, the temple has witnessed the change of history (read more).