Preface.
There are many ancient temples and temples in Beijing that have a long history and are famous.
However, there is a little-known Tanzhe Temple, which is protected by the state and has been guarded by the armed police special police team 24 hours a day.
What is so special about this humble little temple? What secrets does it hide, and it needs to be guarded by the armed police 24 hours a day?
The source in this article comes from the official ** (Beijing Tourism Network, released on May 9, 2020), but in order to improve the readability of the article, the details may be edited, please read sensibly, for reference only!
Tanzhe Temple, a famous temple of ancient temples that has gone through vicissitudes and accumulated a lot, it is located at the eastern foot of Xishan in Beijing, has a history of more than 1,700 years, and is a holy place in the history of Buddhism in China.
It not only hides the heaviness of the millennium, but also shines with the light of humanities.
In 265 A.D., at the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, there was a meritorious governor of Wang County, who quelled the famous "Eight Kings Rebellion" and made great achievements.
However, the good times did not last long, and his beloved wife died young the following year, and Wang Jun was devastated and decided to build a temple for his wife to relieve his grief.
Therefore, he chose to build a temple at the foot of the Tanzhe Mountain in western Beijing, which was the predecessor of the famous Tanzhe Temple in the future, Jiafu Temple.
The word "Jiafu" is taken from the name of his wife and the country name "Yongjia" at that time, which shows the depth of Wang Jun's love for his deceased wife.
Over the centuries, this small temple has also changed its name many times, including "Dawanshou Temple" and "Longquan Temple".
Later, because there is a dragon pond in the mountain, the Zhe tree surrounds it, the folk will gradually refer to it in the name of "Tan Zhe Temple", this name has been used so far, and the melodious spread has not changed for thousands of years.
The rise and fall of Tan Zhe Temple has gone through several twists and turns, since ancient times, Buddhism in our country has experienced several times of prosperity and the impact of the evil wave of the "extinguishing Buddha" storm, Tan Zhe Temple can not escape the bad luck, once barren and decadent, fortunately, history will always leave a glimmer of life.
After the famous monk Huayan of the Tang Dynasty rebuilt the temple, the vitality of Tanzhe Temple was reawakened.
In the Jin Dynasty, Jin Xizong ascended the throne and was attracted by the pleasant scenery here, and he not only visited the temple in person, but also invested heavily in the expansion.
Since then, Tanzhe Temple has been repaired by the emperors of the past dynasties as a royal temple, the incense is continuous, and the Ming and Qing dynasties have been expanded to 999 and a half rooms, quite large-scale.
In addition to the imperial room, Tanzhe Temple also left a lot of folk talents halo, the Ming Dynasty's great hero of the battle of Jingyan - the black-clothed prime minister Yao Guangxiao, he practiced here.
Whenever political affairs are difficult, Chengzu Zhu Di will personally ask him to go out of the mountain to assist, for thousands of years, this deep friendship between the emperor and the courtiers has also become a good story that has been passed down through the ages.
During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Tanzhe Temple reached its heyday, the Qianlong Emperor stayed here six times, he inscribed the words "Lingxiu Congzhong" on the wall and stone carving, so that the temple building is extremely exquisite.
This grand occasion was unprecedented, and Goethe sighed that "there is no second scripture building in the world that can be compared with the Tanzhe Temple in Beijing."
Emperor Qianlong also personally presided over the renovation of the "Great Treasure Pavilion" in the temple's scripture building, expanding to tens of thousands of scriptures, which was extremely magnificent.
Since the establishment of the Jin Dynasty to the peak of the Qing Dynasty, Tanzhe Temple has gone through vicissitudes of life before becoming an important Buddhist town in northern China and a royal temple used by the emperor.
It has witnessed the rise and fall of several dynasties, accumulated extraordinary historical and cultural heritage over the past thousand years, and can be called a "living fossil" of the religious beliefs of the Chinese nation, which is worthy of being remembered and inherited by future generations.
There are two treasures of the town temple in Tanzhe Temple, which are the most famous, they are "a pot and a fish".
The pot is a large copper pot used by the monks in the temple to cook; The fish is a huge stone fish from the sky, and they all contain magical legends.
First of all, let's talk about the origin of the big copper pot, this cauldron is nearly two meters in diameter and more than one meter deep, and the volume is extremely huge.
In the past, the temple specially used it to boil porridge for the monks of the whole temple to eat, and later generations found that this pot has two peculiar characteristics: "sand leakage does not leak rice" and "increase water does not increase rice".
The so-called "sand leakage does not leak rice" refers to the fact that when the porridge is boiled, the rice grains float up and the sand settles, so that it can be easily separated.
"Add water but not rice" means that because the pot is very large, other monks only need to add water when they come, and the porridge boiled out is as thick as that.
It is said that this magical big copper pot can also distinguish the good and evil of others, and for good people, the cooked food is delicious and delicious; In the face of the ** people, it will only be a foul-smelling soup.
There are also two snake statues standing next to the copper pot, which is related to Emperor Qianlong, when Qianlong came to the temple to make incense, two green snakes turned into forms and stood in front of his case.
Qianlong was amazed and said, "This stupid worm is for everyone to eat." Hearing this, the two green snakes went straight to the kitchen, and got into the big copper pot, and when the monk drank the porridge, they found that the pot was full of snake meat, so they set up a statue to commemorate it.
In addition to the big copper pot, there is also the second treasure of the temple - the stone fish from the sky, according to legend, the Dragon King of the West Sea has a divine fish, dedicated to the Jade Emperor.
Later, there was a great drought here, the people's life was extremely difficult, the Jade Emperor couldn't bear it, and gave the divine fish to the world, it turned into a white light and fell into the temple, with the ability to rain and eliminate disasters.
This "stone fish" has a black body and 13 parts, corresponding to the 13 provinces at that time.
Just knock on a certain part to make the province rain, in addition, the people will touch the body of the fish to seek health, in order to drive away diseases, and then the body of the fish is getting smoother and smoother, and now the stone fish enshrined has been recast in the 80s.
In addition to the treasures of the two town temples, there is also a "worship brick" enshrined in the temple, which is placed in the Guanyin Temple, and two footprints are clearly visible on it.
According to legend, this is the position where Princess Miao Yan often stood to worship the Buddha, Princess Miao Yan was the granddaughter of Genghis Khan, the third daughter of the founding emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, she followed her father to fight on the battlefield since she was a child, and later decided to become a monk and defend the Buddha to atone for the sins of the victims.
Princess Myoyan devoted her life to Buddhism and practiced in the temple, and she stood on this brick every day for a long time to chant and pray, so that her feet made a deep imprint.
Today, this brick is still enshrined in the Guanyin Temple, and many believers who come to the pilgrimage will worship it devoutly.
Finally, one of the towers in the temple is also quite special, unlike other tombs, it is not a monk buried here, but a tiger that hurts people!
It is rumored that in the mountains and forests near Tanzhe Temple, there lived a ** tiger, which often went down the mountain to attack humans, making the nearby villagers live in fear.
Later, a kind-hearted Venerable Yin Liang came to Tanzhe Temple and began his spiritual life here.
One day, the tiger came down the mountain to forage for food, and inadvertently broke into the hall where Master Yin Liang was lecturing, and to everyone's horror, the beast did not attack, but sat down beside Master Yin Liang very meekly.
It turned out that the kind and compassionate Venerable Yin Liang used the power of Buddhism to influence the tiger, so that it slowly put away its ferocity, switched to eating vegetarian food, and followed the Venerable Master every day to listen to the Buddhist scriptures together.
After many years, Venerable Yin Liang finally passed away, and the tiger that had lost its support also went on a hunger strike to death, and finally its body was buried in the temple by the monks, and a "tiger pagoda" was built to commemorate this beast that was influenced by Buddhism.
Today, this tiger pagoda still stands in the Tanzhe Temple, reminding people of the miracle of Buddhism that Venerable Liang touched the tiger, and every year during the puja, devotees will also come here to worship with reverence.
In addition to this unique tiger pagoda, Tanzhe Temple also treasures some ancient cultural relics, such as bronze incense burners, jade pendants, etc., which have a long history, are invaluable, and also contain heavy cultural connotations.
Among them, the bronze incense burner is used to burn incense in the temple, it is an important sacrificial utensil, its style is simple and simple, but the craftsmanship is exquisite, and it exudes an ancient atmosphere in the incense.
The jade pendant is the decoration of the ancient aristocracy, and this tiny object is also full of luxury and mystery.
Epilogue. These towers and cultural relics all record the bits and pieces of this ancient temple.
They witness the changes of history and the ups and downs of the times, and also allow us to get a glimpse of the magnificence of the Chinese national culture through the fog of history.