Qinglian Temple is located at Lingshi Mountain, 17.5 kilometers southeast of Jingcheng City, Shanxi Province.
Perfectly in line with the geomantic omen of facing the mountain with the back to the water in ancient China, Qinglian Temple oversees Lindan River and leans on a tall mountain. A stone tablet on the mountain contains inscriptions from 543 during the Eastern Wei period. The temple is divided into the old and new Qinglian Temple, built in 552 in the Northern Qi and the Sui (581-618)-Tang (618-907) periods respectively.
Main constructions at the temple – all symmetrically distributed — include the God Hall, Scriptures Storage Building, Sakyamuni Hall, Arhat Hall, Underground Treasure Building and Lecture Hall, and monasteries. The grand Sakyamuni Hall has a hanging eaved gable and hip roof built in a style typical of the Song Dynasty (960-1279). A Sakyamuni statue sits in the hall with his two followers, Manjusri and Samantabhadra Bodhisattvas. Lifelike statues of gods — 15 arhats, the Bodhisattvas and Yama Raja – are housed in the east and west buildings. A flat-topped cliff towers over the temple in the east. To the south is the Kuanyue Pavilion, which contains inscriptions by poets and scholars on its inner walls. The inscriptions suggest the pavilion was built during the Song Dynasty. South of the temple in the main hall is a stone tablet with a carving of a Buddhist temple of the Tang Dynasty, which is of great historic architectural value.
(Source: chinaculture.org)
