Huayan Monastery
Huayan Temple was one of the important temples for the Huayan Sect (one of the seven important Buddhist sects of China) during China’s Liao Dynasty (916 – 1125) the sect found receptive popularity among the imperial courts. The original buildings served in part as the imperial ancestral temples but were destroyed in a fire. Rebuilt 1122 on a large scale with several extensions added during the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644) giving us the present complex.
Unlike other temple architecture in China, in which the main halls and buildings are north-south axis, with the facade facing towards the south, the temple constructions in the Huayan Temple are on an east-west axis with the main halls facing to the east. This was due to the Qidan, (a minority tribe living on the northern border of China who built the Liao Dynasty,) whose tradition of praying for the Divinity of the Sun to the east, thus taking East as superior to everything.
The temple complex is divided into two parts, namely the Upper Huayan and Lower Huayan, both of which respectively have its own mountain gate and temple layout. The Upper Huayan, featured with a range of gorgeously decorated buildings, among which, Daxiong Baodian is the main hall. With an area of 1,600 square meters (14,400 square feet), the hall stands imperially throughout ages and boasts to be one of the largest of its kind in China.
Now, the upper and lower monasteries are connected together, but each has a main hall. The main hall of the upper monastery is the Hall of Sakyamuni. It was first built in the Liao Dynasty and renovated in the Jin Dynasty (1115 – 1234). Occupying an area of 1,553 square meters (about 0.4 acres) it is one of the largest Buddha halls of the Liao period still in existence in China. In the middle of the hall, there are five sculptures standing in a row at the bottom of a lotus flower. Another twenty sculptures of gods, standing bowing to show their respect accompany the five main gods. Paintings on the wall depict sutra stories. The total area of the well-preserved color frescos is 890 square meters (about 0.2 acres) which is rare in China. On top of the hall are color paintings from the Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasties (1644 – 1911) portraying dragons, cranes, flowers, all of which are images often found in Chinese legends on Buddhism. The Lower Monastery is simple and unsophisticated. Its main hall is the Bhaga Repository Hall in which Buddhist sutra is kept. The wooden library containing the Buddhist scriptures is exquisitely and elaborately designed. There are thirty-one sculptures in the hall among which the Bodhisattva with a pious prayer pose is the most famous; it possesses a lifelike human likeness rather than that of a god.
Tickets:CNY 20 (Upper Huayan Monastery)
CNY 20 (Lower Huayan Monastery)
Opening Hours: 9:10 to 17:00
Bus Route:Take the direct tourist bus at Datong railway station
