Scholar Zhang Sheng added that the history-rich temple had become a common place for urban religious life, which is reflected in the annual temple fair. A few words were chanted by the abbot in long, drawling tones and in a few minutes this was followed by the other monks present joining in, chanting, murmuring and singing in succession for some time before the meeting finally dispersed. Having struck his bell three times, the abbot began the service by beating fast and slow, and produced a tinkling sound, while another monk struck a wooden shell drum, which produced a hollow sound. The monks were just about to meet for evening prayer when the writer entered. The brocades, curtains and tapestries are beautiful,” he said. “Everything, including the doors, tables and shrines, and the gods themselves, is exceedingly well carved and attracts not a little attention. In the hall were the nine companions of his life and a similar number of other gods. Going into the main temple, Hickmott was welcomed by a golden Buddha, which was around 20 feet high, sitting on lotus leaves and occupied the chief shrine. All are gorgeously dressed in scarlet robes,” he wrote. This is the real Ching-an-tz, ‘Temple of Repose (Silence), Purity and Peace.’ The first gods that greet one are three brothers - the Gods of Heaven, Earth and Water - whose names signify what they rule and those birthdays fall on the 15th day of the 1st, 7th and 10th moons. Passing through several small halls and a couple of courtyards one comes to the main building, which, it is claimed, dates back some 1,000 years. “The temple is a clean and well-kept place, but is greatly handicapped through lack of funds. The writer first described the well-known “Bubbling Well” with “its muddy water, carbonic acid and marsh gas.” Hickmott wrote about his tour to the temple in great details, which was recorded in the North-China Herald on December 29, 1923. In his “Guide to Shanghai,” an expatriate named A. The temple attracted a continuous stream of visitors and people wrote about their tours in old records or poem collections,” said Zhang. Poems of the Jing’an Eight Scenes had been edited into collections. “Ancient Chinese temples had often been a place for writers to wander and jot down their thoughts and feelings. Small rivers, a stone tablet, bubbling well, rockery, flowers and woods were arranged in an elegant way so the “Garden of Jing’an Eight Scenes” covers an area of 2,300 square meters. It boasted eight famous scenes, one of which was certainly the “Bubbling Well” fronting its main gate acclaimed as “the Sixth Spring of the Earth.”Īs times went by, all the eight scenic spots disappeared, but were revived in a Chinese garden inside Jing’an Park. The temple was not only big, but also beautiful. Jing’an Temple in the 19th century, then located in the western suburbs of Shanghai.Īfter moving to Bubbling Well Creek, the ancient temple gradually expanded and grew to be a gigantic temple in the Yuan Dynasty (12711368). He and other historians are still searching for more sources to prove this.Īccording to the 2013 book, “Traces of Place Names in Jing’an District,” edited by the district’s urban planning and land management bureau, the temple was first named Hudu Chongyuan Temple, renamed Yongtaichan Temple during the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and got the present name Jing’an Temple in 1008 during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). today,” said scholar Zhang Sheng from the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences who has researched the urban and architectural history around Jing’an Temple.Īfter researching a Songjiang record named Yun Jian Zhi or Record among the Clouds, published in the 1190s, Zhang traced the temple’s history back more than 1,600 years, which made Jing’an Temple the oldest Buddhist temple in the southern region of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. After that the temple was moved to the bank of Bubbling Well Creek, which is the present site of 1686 Nanjing Road W. “The temple formerly perched on the bank of old Wusong River (today’s Suzhou River), which was constantly attacked by river waves, finally crashed in a flood in 1216. Some scholars trace the history of Jing’an Temple back more than 1,600 years, which made it the oldest Buddhist temple in the southern region of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
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