Hanging Monastery

 

Location : Shanxi province, China

Coordinates : 39°39′57″N 113°42′18″E

 

The Hanging Temple is a temple built into a cliff (246 ft above the ground) near Mount Heng in Hunyuan County, Datong City, Shanxi province, China. The closest city is Datong. Built more than 1,500 years ago, this temple is notable not only for its location on a sheer precipice but also because it is the only existing temple with the combination of three Chinese traditional religions: Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. The structure is kept in place with oak crossbeams fitted into holes chiseled into the cliffs. The main supportive structure was hidden inside the bedrock.  Due to the monastery is located in the small canyon basin, and the body of the building is hanging in the middle of the cliffs, which is under the summit prominent part, protecting the temple from rain erosion and sunlight. Coupled with the repair of the dynasties, the color tattoo in the temple is relatively well preserved.

 

Over 40 halls, cabinets and pavilions within an area of 1641.5 square feet are connected each other by corridors, bridges and boardwalks. They are evenly distributed and well balanced in height. Inside the temple are more than 80 bronze cast statues, iron cast statues, and clay sculptured statues and stone carvings banded down from different dynasties.

 

All buildings in the temple were hung on the crag at the slope of Hengshan Mountain. Strew at random and spread in the air, it just like a flying little phoenix. The buildings are arrayed in a line from the south of the cliff to the north, and heightened gradually like a dragon pronating on the cliff. More than forty halls, rooms and pavilions in the temple are divided to three groups. Passing through the temple gate, one can reach a two-storeyed building. As the stele pavilions and the gate towers, two tall buildings stand face to face in the yard. There are two bell and drum towers on both sides of the temple gate, and they are square side pavilions.

 

The principal building among them is the Sanguan Hall, a place to offer sacrifice to Taoism. Statues in the hall are vivid, with undecorated faces, black eyebrows and swaying gussets. The principal building in the central party is the Sansheng Hall, which enshrines sitting Buddha statues with disciples standing submissively on the sides. The last building complex is mainly the Sanjiao Hall, the highest one in the temple, and has a three-eave gable and hip roof with nine ridges. Statues of Confucius, Laozi (a scholar in ancient China) and Sakyamuni the founders of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism respectively, are enshrined in the hall. Different cultures directly encounter one another here. This building is a perfect combination of religion and culture of Chinese feudal society. The statue of Sakyamuni stands in the middle, that of Laozi on the right and Confucius on the left, with different expressions. Displaying the innermost being of three founders of different doctrines, techniques of statuaries are really exquisite and are acclaimed as the peak of perfection.

 

According to the history of Shangshen Mountain, construction of the original temple was conducted by only one man, a monk named Liao Ran   (了然). Over more than 1,600 years, many repairs and extensions have led to its present day scale.

 

Objective :

 

Locate Gate of the Ancients

 

Status :

 

01/11/1933

Unconfirmed number of crew members of the Zephyr ZRS-6 explored the Hanging Monastery.  Unknown interference at 22 :02.  Radiation spike recorded at 23 :34.  Opening of Seal confirmed.  Extraction of subject pending.