The Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou China.
Lingyin Temple, an ancient Chinese Buddhist temple, also known as Yunlin Temple, is located in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, backed by North Peak and facing Feilai Peak. It was built in the first year of Xianhe in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (326 years), covering an area of about 87,000 square meters.
The founder of Lingyin Temple is the West Indian monk Huili. Emperor Wu of Liang Dynasty in the Southern Dynasty granted land and expanded it. Qian Liu, King of Wuyue in the Five Dynasties, ordered Master Yongming Yanshou to revive and develop the temple and named it Lingyin New Temple.
During the Jiading period of Emperor Ningzong of the Song Dynasty, Lingyin Temple was known as one of the “Five Mountains” of Zen Buddhism in the south of the Yangtze River. During the Shunzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, the master of Zen Buddhism, Monk Gu De, became the abbot of Lingyin and raised funds to rebuild the temple. It took eighteen years to build the temple alone, and its scale ranked “the highest in the southeast” .
In the 28th year of Emperor Kangxi’s reign in the Qing Dynasty (1689), Emperor Kangxi named it “Yunlin Zen Temple” during his southern tour.
Lingyin Temple is mainly composed of the Tianwang Hall, the Main Hall, the Pharmacist Hall, the Dharma Hall, and the Huayan Hall as the central axis, with buildings such as the Five Hundred Arhat Hall, Jigong Hall, Huayan Pavilion, Dabei Tower, and Abbot Tower attached to both sides.
Date: 2023–11–6