Behind the Great Hall there are two iron towers standing on both sides, they are by far the oldest towers in China.
The iron tower in the east was built with the donation from Liu Chang, the last emperor of the Southern Han Kingdom the 10th year (967) of the Dabao reign of the Southern Han during the Five Dynasties Period (907-960). The tower is tetragonal and has seven storeys with a height of 7.69 meters. The plane is a square. It has a stone pedestal wholly cast out of iron. More than 900 niches in total were cast around the body of the tower with a small statue of Buddha in each niche. The lifelike statues were made with delicate technics. When completed, the tower was coated with gold powder, and thus called Tujin Qianfo Tower (a thousand Buddha coated with gold powder). Beneath the tower is an iron base in the shape of a lotus carved with Flying Dragons in the fireball and Ascending dragons and descending dragons with flame and three valuable beads.
The iron tower in the west was cast in the 6th year (963) of the Dabao reign of the Southern Han. It is the oldest iron tower that has the exact known time. It is similar to the iron tower in the east, but has only three storeys because of the damage caused by a house explosion during the War of Resistance against Japan. It is also carved with a thousand statues of Buddha. In the center of each side there is a big niche with a sitting Buddha in it. Delicate and elegant Flying Apsarases, Warriors, and other patterns were carved beneath the eaves and on the pedestal of Buddha statues.
The Sixth Ancestor Hall was rebuilt in the 31st year (1692) of the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty. It is 5-bay wide and 4-bay long, with single-eaved gable and hip roof. The flat bases of the pillars in the temple were made of black stone into exquisite lotuses of several layers. They are relics of the Song Dynasty. After having publicly lectured Buddhism, initiating and propagandized the tenets of the Zen Buddhist sect in the Temple of Bright Filial Piety, the Sixth Ancestor Huineng transformed the Zen Sect into a major sect of Zen Buddhism. This temple was built to memorize him. There is a 2.5-meter-high sitting statue of the Sixth Ancestor in the temple. To the east, there is a stele corridor in which steles of the Sixth Ancestor and other inscriptions were housed. These steles are important cultural relics for study on the Sixth Ancestor and the Zen Buddhist Sect.
The Jiafa Tower is in front of the Sixth Ancestor temple. It was made of stones, sands and bricks, is 7.8 meters high, octagonal, and has seven storeys. Eight niches with small statues of Buddha in them are in each storey. After Huineng had become the Sixth Ancestor of Buddhism, the abbot of the temple dared to bury his hair in the earth under pipal tree, and erected this tower and monument to memorize him. This pipal tree together with other two Kezi trees in the Temple of Bright Filial Piety has lived for more than a thousand years. Beside the tower there are steles with statues of the Sixth Ancestor and Bodhidharma made in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).
(Source: chinaculture.org)
