In recent years, researchers have dated the carbon 14 of various parts of the main hall, and found some older components (including wooden structures, buckets and straws in clay sculptures), which pushed the reconstruction date of the main hall to the early 8th century, one hundred years earlier than the current dating. Of course, the final accurate dating depends on more evidence to confirm.
According to legend, Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty founded Beikeji, which has always had an official color. It was first recorded that "the emperor saw the Buddha's light because of his fame." The ancestral temple next to the East Hall is probably a relic of the Northern Wei Dynasty, and many wooden structures at that time were probably destroyed by Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, there were many records of Zen masters stationed in Beikeji. Later, Beixing Temple was rebuilt on a large scale by Buddhist monks in the Tang Dynasty, and was later destroyed by the "Huichang Fa Nan". During the Xuanzong period of the Tang Dynasty, temples all over the country began to be rebuilt. As for the reconstruction of Beikeji, according to records, Xuanzong let the monks release their wishes and sincerely called on the monks to "set up camps in Beikeji". The East Hall we saw was rebuilt from this.
The funds for building the temple came from a right-wing lieutenant surnamed Wang, that is, the book Right-wing King written by Beiliang Di in the East Hall. Liang Sicheng thought that it was Wang Shoucheng who was in power in the ruling and opposition. According to later research, this right-wing lieutenant is more likely to be Wang Yuan. On the same beam, "The Buddhist monk gave it to the female disciple Ning Gong" is probably Wang Yuan's wife.
"Sacrifice" usually refers to the act of giving money and goods to temples to support the "three treasures" of Buddhist monks or to support the construction of temples and the sculpture of Buddha statues. Maybe after Wang Yuan's death, Ning Gong Yu used her late husband's money to finance the reconstruction of Wuke Temple. Ning also became the owner of the Buddhist temple in Beigao Temple and stayed in the temple. The so-called Buddhist temple owner is the manager in charge of the chores of a Buddhist temple in the temple. According to the lettering on the Confucian Classics Building in the 11th year of Dazhong, both Shi Yuancheng and Ning are the owners of the East Temple Buddhist Temple.
This is the beginning of the East Room.
East Hall, east-west, is located at the easternmost end of Beigao Temple, with rocks behind it and high platform in front. Standing in front of the temple, you can overlook the whole temple. The space where the East Hall is located is actually a part of the mountain. The hall will be rebuilt after the land is chiseled. The original rock is very close to the back eaves of the main hall, almost close to the abutment. Because a flash flood in 1960s and early 1950s destroyed the back wall of the main hall, people chiseled back the rock by several meters to the position they saw today.
This unique environment actually has a wonderful sense of time. Among the rocks behind the temple is Wutaishan greenstone, which has a history of nearly 3 billion years and is one of the earliest terrestrial rocks. Compared with the age of these rocks, the history of the East Hall on the side is nothing.
Another interesting thing is that the Buddhist altar in the East Hall is not made of bricks and stones on a flat foundation, but directly made of rocks. On the surface, the rocks are under the bricks. This practice may be to save materials, but considering the shape of the East Hall, some researchers think it is a variant of the cave temple. In the grottoes in the early Tang Dynasty, there was a practice of chiseling the central Buddhist altar in the rock array. There were many caves with wooden eaves at that time. We see that the environment of the East Hall is surrounded by rocks, and the distance between the back eaves and the rocks is very close at first. Coupled with the design of the front porch of the Tang Dynasty (which will be described in detail later), the whole space of the East Hall feels quite like a cave temple.
The East Hall is seven rooms wide and eight rooms (four rooms) deep, with a single eaves and a roof. The five front doors are all original objects of the Tang Dynasty, and two rooms are equipped with straight lattice windows. The eaves are warm and far-reaching, and the bucket is huge and magnificent. It is the only wooden structure building in China that can present the original features of the Tang Dynasty (other Tang-style buildings are small temples with low grades). Liang Sicheng called it: "The temple is big, the roof slope is gentle, and the eaves are wide and the wings are out. They are all huge and heroic, much like temples in the pure land of Dunhuang murals. At first glance, it is something from the late Tang and Five Dynasties. 」
On the door, there is a plaque of "Buddha Glory Zhen Temple", which was built in the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty. The glazed roof components and ridged beasts are also relics of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
The plane space of the East Hall is the bottom groove of the golden box bucket, which is surrounded by two circles of columns inside and outside. The Buddhist altar is located in the inner groove space surrounded by inner columns, and a fan-shaped wall spanning five rooms is built between the inner columns at the back. The inner column is the same height as the outer column, which is called "hall building" in France. There is a small square (ceiling) on the ceiling, and the inner groove is higher than the outer groove (the space between the inner and outer columns), creating a larger central space. There are inclined rafters on both sides of the plane, forming a trapezoidal "small dome".
The beam under the horizontal plane is called Mingba, and the Mingba in the East Hall is cut into a "moon beam", with both ends obviously bent (that is, "rolled") and beautiful appearance. The beam above the level is invisible to the viewer, so it is called grass, with thick wood, and there is not much pursuit of appearance.
There are four rafters in the inner groove (the actual span is only two rafters), which connect the front and rear inner columns and are supported by the bucket on the inner column by four jumps. A half hump is installed in the middle of the back of the four rafters to bear the cross bucket, which is the same as the cross bucket at both ends, and the flat chess bucket directly supports the flat shovel. The second jump of the inner column bucket is the milk bucket connecting the inner and outer columns. There is a hidden carving square on the chest, which supports the flat chess square of the outer groove upward.
The grass rafters above the flat rafters are also four rafters connected with the front and back chest rafters, and the flat beams are supported on the four rafters. There is a big fork above the flat beam, and the top of the fork is supported by a spinal raft. Fork hand without vertical column (short column) is a typical architectural feature of Tang Dynasty. At first glance, Liang Sicheng is the only isolated case obtained by the Architectural Society for many years.
There has been a great change in the history of the East Hall, that is, the front door, windows and external walls moved outward. The original board door and window wall is located in the inner column, and there is a front porch between the inner and outer columns, which is similar to the Jintang of the Tang and Zhao Temple in Nara at the same time. Although this change has little influence on the beam structure, it makes people in it feel very different in space.
The space of the front porch is between the inside and outside, covered by eaves, but connected with the surrounding natural environment. As far as outdoor space is concerned, the front porch is the first thing that visitors see when they come up from the west steps. There is a sense of depth that attracts visitors to the temple and creates a sense of rhythm in depth. From the indoor space, after the front porch enters the door, compared with the situation without the front porch (the door wall moves outward), the distance between the Buddha statue and the viewer is much closer. First of all, you should look up, and at the same time, because of the limited vision, you need to stare at the Buddha statues one by one during the trip, which is somewhat similar to the way of worshipping Buddha in the grottoes. This is completely different from the design of many halls to create a huge space in front of the Buddhist altar. This is also related to the shape of the East Hall as a grotto variant.
Unfortunately, I can't appreciate the artistic conception of the front porch today. Fortunately, we can open the door of the Tang Dynasty and experience the shock of tang style.