LegendThe vow of Dizang
Visitors pray for the dead in the Dizang Hall. Dizang, the scriptures say, vowed not to become a Buddha until hell was empty.
Source: Buddhist scripture, the Sutra of Dizang's Original Vows
The story
In 963, the seventh year of Tianhui under the Northern Han (951–979), one of the small states of the Five Dynasties (907–960) period, a hall was built at a temple called Jingcheng in Haodong village. The year is written on a beam inside, and the county records and a stele of 1819 agree. In the Jiajing years of the Ming (1368–1644) the temple was renamed Zhenguo, "guarding the country".
That hall, the Hall of Ten Thousand Buddhas, still stands. Only a few timber buildings from before the Song (960–1279) dynasty survive in all of China, and most of them are in Shanxi. Its painted clay figures, made when the hall was built, are among the rare Buddhist sculptures of the tenth century left in the country.
What is here
One ticket covers both courtyards.
| Part | Ticket |
|---|---|
| Front court: Hall of Heavenly Kings and Hall of Ten Thousand Buddhas | Main ticket |
| Back court: Hall of the Three Buddhas, Guanyin and Dizang halls | Main ticket |
If you have one minute
Under the eaves of the Hall of Ten Thousand Buddhas
Look up. The brackets that carry the roof are enormous for so small a hall: from the top of the column to the eaves they reach about seven tenths of the column's height. Builders of the Tang (618–907) and Five Dynasties used them to throw the roof far out over the walls.
Step inside. On a low platform sits the Buddha with two disciples, two bodhisattvas, two heavenly kings and two boy attendants, all of clay, painted in the tenth century and touched up later. Their faces are full and calm in the way of the late Tang.
Things people often get wrong
"Ten Thousand Buddhas means ten thousand statues." The name comes from the many small Buddhas painted on the walls.
"It is just another old temple." Its main hall is older than any building in Pingyao town, and older than almost every timber building in the world.
People who stood here
We searched Chinese sources first for this list, then English ones.
- Liu Jun (ruler of the Northern Han, r. 954–968)The hall was built in his reign, when his small state in Shanxi held out against the new Song dynasty.
- Ruan Yisan (urban planner, born 1934)His campaign to save Pingyao led to the World Heritage listing of 1997, which included this temple.
Go deeper: four halls and the brackets
The temple has two courtyards. The Hall of Ten Thousand Buddhas is in the first, the Hall of the Three Buddhas in the second. One hour.
1. The Hall of the Heavenly Kings
The gate hall, with its guardian kings, is Ming. Its small, neat brackets are a good comparison for what comes next.
2. The Hall of Ten Thousand Buddhas
Three bays square, with a roof of hip and gable. Walk round it and compare the brackets with those of the gate hall. Count the tiers of arms under one bracket set.
Inside, the beams of 963 are open to view; there is no ceiling.
3. The figures of the tenth century
The old disciple Kasyapa, his face lined, stands at the Buddha's side. A boy attendant, half-naked, sits with one knee up. A heavenly king glares in armour. Look at the drapery, how it falls.
On the side walls, rows and rows of small painted Buddhas give the hall its name.
4. The Hall of the Three Buddhas
In the back court a Ming two-storey hall holds three Buddhas, the three bodies of the Buddha. Its Qing murals tell the Buddha's life. On either side are the halls of Guanyin and of Dizang, who rescues souls from hell.
The temple and the same years elsewhere
The hall was built in 963, the year Otto I deposed a pope in Rome and three years after the Song dynasty was founded. Sixteen years later the Song conquered the Northern Han and reunited China.