The Historical Evolution of Liu Rong Temple

In 420-479 (Southern Dynasties and Song Dynasty), a temple named "Guangzhou Bao Zhuang Yan Temple" was built.

In 537 AD (the third year of Liang Datong), the shaman master Tan Yu asked the Buddha to return to Guangzhou from Funan (Cambodia). After obtaining the imperial edict, he built a stupa in front of the main hall of Baosi Temple. This pagoda is a quadrangular six-story wooden pagoda with relics under it and Buddhist illustrations painted inside and outside, which is called "Zhuang Yan Temple Treasure Pagoda".

In 650 AD (the first year of Tang Yonghui), the beams and columns of the temple tower have been damaged after 100 years of wind and rain erosion. One day, the auspicious light of the stupa appeared, shocking the people of Yangcheng, and believers flocked to watch it. Li Sui, commander-in-chief of Shiguang and Shao Dynasties, invited Diaspora Doctor, Shimou, the magistrate of guangzhou fu, General Wei Ming, etc. to visit Panyu magistrate, and went to the temple to pay homage to the Buddhist monk Baolun to discuss the promotion and repair of the stupa. After careful organization and construction, the stupa has been restored and reappeared.

In the spring of 675 AD (the second year of Shangyuan in Tang Gaozong), Wang Bo left his hometown of Longmen in Jiangzhou (now Hejin in Shaanxi Province) to visit his father in Jiaodi (now Vietnam) (his father Fu Chou had been in Jiaodi for many years) and arrived in Guangzhou in November. When Bao Temple held the Dharma Meeting, a monk asked him to write down an inscription of more than 3,000 words "Guangzhou Bao Temple Pagoda Monument".

In 9 17 AD, Gong Liu, king of the South China Sea, proclaimed himself emperor, with the title of Da Yue and its capital in Guangzhou. The following year, it was renamed Han (known as Nanhan in history), and its title was Gan Heng, and it was promoted to Guangzhou for prosperity. The monarch of the Southern Han Dynasty believed in Buddhism, and Baosi was renamed Changshou Temple. Because it is the place where Liu Zongshi's women become monks and practice, it is still called stupa. Every Shangyuan and Mid-Autumn Festival, people climb the pagoda to light candles and hang lanterns (called "moon lights") to indicate a bumper year.

In 97 1 year (the fourth year of Song Kaibao), the Southern Han Dynasty perished, and Changshou Temple and stupa were destroyed by fire, which lasted for more than a hundred years.

In 988 (A.D. at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty), the temple was rebuilt to dedicate the prototype bronze statue of Cao Xi's six ancestors. The temple was rebuilt in the second year of Duangong and renamed "Jinghui Temple". At that time, there were six ancient banyan trees in the temple, which had been called "Six Banyan Temple" among the people, but this was just a common name, not a temple name.

A.D. 1086 (Song and Yuan years), the abbot of Jinghui Temple, the monk Dechao, raised funds to rebuild the stupa. Discuss the reconstruction of the stupa with the former chief bookkeeper of Baodi County in Fengxiang County, Lin Xiuju, a native of Nanhai, and Wang Qu, a believer in this county. They found the base of the old pagoda and rebuilt it according to the inscription of "square well, round spring and scattered scenery" and the folk saying of "surrounding nine ancient wells" At that time, the relics hidden in the Liang Daijian tower were excavated and are still hidden today. On June 3rd, the fourth year of Shaosheng (AD 1097), the stupa was completed. Monks invited Song Huangshu and Zhao Shuang, the secretariat of Kangzhou (now Deqing, Guangdong), who often went to worship Buddha in the temple, to write a book "Rebuilding Guangzhou Jinghui Temple Pagoda". The new tower is made of brick and wood, octagonal, with nine floors on the outside and a dark floor 17 on the inside. There are shrines on the inner and outer walls of each floor to worship the sages who robbed thousands of Buddha statues, so it is called "Thousand Buddha Pagoda".

In A.D. 1 100 (the third year of Fuyuan in the Northern Song Dynasty), the great writer Su Dongpo returned to the north from Hainan. When he visited the temple via Guangzhou, he wrote an inscription for the temple at the request of monks and Taoists. When he saw the six banyan trees in the temple, full of green, intertwined and imposing, he happily wrote down the word "six banyan trees".

In A.D. 1358 (18th year from Yuan Dynasty to Zheng Dynasty), the pagoda was rebuilt. A bronze column with a height of 9. 14m was cast on the pagoda body, and 1023 Buddha statues and a picture of Xiangyun Tiangong pagoda were cast on the pagoda body. Together with the flaming orb at the top of the tower, three layers of nine treasure plates, nine layers of treasure wheels, one layer of double dragon treasure plates and eight chains, a pagoda brake weighing 5 tons is formed.

1373 (the sixth year of Hongwu in Ming Dynasty), half of the temple area became Yongfengcang. Since then, the mountain gate has been changed to face east, and the area of the temple has been gradually reduced, and six ancient banyan trees have also been cut down outside the temple (the original Jinghui Temple is quite large in scale and covers a wide area, with the mountain gate facing south, "more than two miles horizontally").

In A.D. 1375 (the eighth year of Hongwu in Ming Dynasty), Jian Yue, a Buddhist monk, rebuilt the damaged pagoda hall in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, and built the Huang Jue Hall in the east of Tadong (which was used as the main hall for the next 600 years, but was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution).

1395 (twenty-eight years of Hongwu), Jinghui Temple was once merged into Xichan Temple, and the bronze statue of six ancestors was later moved to Xichan Temple [*].

In AD 14 1 1 year (the ninth year of Yongle in Ming Dynasty), Jinghui Temple was rebuilt, and the monk carved the word "six banyan" from Su Dongpo and hung it on the temple door. Since then, Jinghui Temple has been called Liurong Temple, and stupa has been called Liurong Pagoda. After that, it was rebuilt in the years of Ming Orthodox, Jiajing, Wanli, Apocalypse and Qingganlong (after the restoration of Liu Rong Pagoda in the early Qing Dynasty, it was also called "Flower Pagoda" because its eaves were purlin-shaped, red, green, white and yellow, which set each other off, and it was made at sunrise and rested at sunset, enjoying flowers).

In A.D. 1856 (the sixth year of Qing Xianfeng), the top of the tower fell to the ground due to a typhoon.

In A.D. 1874 (13th year of Tongzhi), the Qing royal family allocated huge sums of money from coastal defense funds to carry out large-scale repairs.

In A.D. 1875 (the first year of Guangxu reign in Qing Dynasty), after xian county built a temple in the same year, he rebuilt the Thousand-Buddha Pagoda and wrote the story of rebuilding the Liu Rong Pagoda.

In A.D. 1900 (the 26th year of Guangxu), the Qing court appointed Tie Chan, the abbot of Liu Rong Temple, as the director of the Guangdong Monk Program.

19 12 (the first year of the Republic of China), the national government abolished the monk official system and established the Guangdong Buddhist Association (the former site of Liu Rong Temple), and Tiechan was promoted to the position of president. In May of the same year, Dr. Sun Yat-sen resigned as interim president and returned to Guangzhou. Tiechan organized a grand welcoming party in Liu Rong Temple for people from Guangdong Buddhist circles to support the national revolution. Dr. Sun Yat-sen wrote a book entitled "Freedom, Equality and Fraternity" and presented it to Liu Rong Temple.

In A.D. 19 13 (the second year of the Republic of China), Tiechan monk led four disciples to welcome the bronze statue of Huineng, the sixth ancestor of Xichan Temple, back to the Overseas Chinese Temple for hundreds of years and built the Sixth Ancestor Hall as a sacrifice. Four banyan trees were replanted (two of the six ancient banyan trees were preserved: one behind Dongpo Jingshe and Fuquan New Street; One is the old Pingnan Palace in the east of the temple. ), build a banyan pavilion, build a fine house on the east slope, set up a "Caoxi Faru" archway, and collect the strange stones "Duoyun" scattered outside Taihu Lake.

19 15 years (in the fourth year of the Republic of China), the Guangzhou earthquake cracked the inner wall of the tower and the copper pillar of a thousand buddhas. (19 15- 1935, seven earthquakes were recorded in Guangzhou, two of which occurred in 19 15 and 19 18. )

192 1 year (the tenth year of the Republic of China), the municipal government opened Huata Street (now Liu Rong Road) in the east of Liu Rong Temple, and cut the temple east to build Jinghui Garden, which reduced the area of the temple again.

193 1, flower tower reconstruction, reinforced concrete reinforcement.

1935 (24 years of the Republic of China) In April, a ceremony was held to rebuild the flower pagoda, and Buddhist Liang wrote "Rebuilding the Temple Flower Pagoda".

1938 (27 years of the Republic of China) 10 In June, the Japanese invaders invaded Guangzhou, and Tiechan took refuge in Panyu and Foshan.

1939 (28 years of the Republic of China) In June, the Japanese puppet regime sent people to forcibly take Tiechan back to Liu Rong Temple, and appointed the head of the puppet regime's Buddhist Association.

1946 (35 years of the Republic of China), after the Anti-Japanese War, Tiechan wanted to retire, and sent a letter asking Xu Yun, the abbot of Ruyuan yunmen temple, to take over Liu Rong Temple. Later, Tie Chan was sentenced to eight years in prison for treason. In the autumn of the same year, in order to commemorate the first anniversary of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, a law meeting was held to recommend the soldiers killed in the Anti-Japanese War. In mid-August, Xu Yun and disciple Kuanjian came to Guangzhou to take over Liu Rong Temple, and submitted a letter of bail to the National Government. On September 27th, Tiechan died in prison (1939, the Japanese puppet regime sent someone to forcibly take Tiechan back to Liu Rong Temple and appointed him as the head of the puppet regime's Buddhist Association, which made him die unjustly, which puzzled the world).

1946 (35 years of the Republic of China) On September 17, Xu Yun presented the relic of Xuanzang's top bone, and set up a land and water Dojo in Liu Rong Temple for seven days and seven nights to recommend soldiers killed in the war of resistance against Japan. When the peach trees were in bloom in the temple north, (Hu's younger brother) wrote an article on "Flying Taorui".

1948, Guan Jian stole all the important property and cultural relics in Liu Rong and fled to Hong Kong, among which there were four precious cultural relics in the temple: (1) bronze Buddha statue of pharmacist in Liao Dynasty; (2) Master Xuanzang's parietal bone; (3) lightly return to the poetry volume; (4) Han Yu, etc. , known as "Jinghui Temple Town Mountain Four Treasures of the Study". When monk Xu Yun found out, he immediately chased him back and was removed from the post of abbot Kuanjian. Master Mingguan succeeded the abbot, and Master Mingguan went to Hong Kong the night before liberation.

1966 during the cultural revolution, except for the bronze statue of six ancestors, all the Buddha statues in Liu Rong Temple were destroyed and all the temples were occupied as warehouses.

1979 In March, the Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China approved the restoration of Liu Rong Temple as a place for religious activities.

1983, the daxiong hall was rebuilt in Tashi, which was dedicated to three bronze buddhas in the second year of Emperor Kangxi of Qing Dynasty (AD 1663). ……