五臺山顯通寺導游詞

　　city,shanxi province ,70km from wutai county town ,140km from xinzhou city town and 240km from taiyuan city in the southwest and 210km from datong in the north ,with a total area of about 2837sq.km.wutai mountain scenic spot area is situated in the region with taihuai town as center in the

　　north part of wutai county ,with an area of 376sq.km. it is a national –level

　　scenic spot area at nation level and a national class 4a tourist scenic spot area wutai mountain has peaks rising one higher than another and chain of mountains in stagger like a coiling dragon and crouching tiger .the whole mountain has more than 1100 varieties of plant and ,among them ,the wutai mountain mushroom is both the good food for eating and valuable drug and was determined as an article of tribute by an emperor in history

　　wutai mountain is the highest mountainous land in north china region ,with the north platform top being at an altitude of 3058m above sea level and called “roof ridge of north china ”,wutai mountain had its name because it has five main peaks with flat and broad platforms .it has five called cool mountain by the buddhists believers and is one of the five main buddhist holy lands in the world and also a famous activity place of buddhism in china ,ranking first among the “four main buddhist famous mountains in china ,where often reside 1200 monks and nuns now ,from north wei to qing dynasty ,the emperors of the past dynasties all have arrived wutai mountain and the eminent monks and great teachers of wutai mountain came forth in large numbers ,these great teachers and grand masters in the history of chinese buddhism have made outstanding contributions for the buddhist culture of wutai mountain so that wutai mountain has become an institution for the overseas believers to study abroad and listen to scriptures and written down a brilliant historic volume of sino-foreign cultural exchange.

　　wutai mountain is a treasure –house of ancient architecture of china ,where the cultural relics gather together and treasures come together in crowds .now , wutai mountain has 47 temples ,and among them are 4 national-level key cultural relic preservation units and nearly 20 are provincial –level key cultural relic preservation units .of the four wood –structure buildings of tang dynasty kept in shanxi ,two are in wutai mountain ,tang song ,liao ,jin ,yuan ,ming and qing dynasties ,and minguo all left behind large buildings of typical wood structure and this itself is a volume of vast and numerious ancient architectural history of china.

　　wutai mountain has long cultural history and magnificent natural sight .in the temples of the whole mountain ate kept 17445 buddha statues ,224pieces of stone tablets, 58 pieces of horizontal boards, 7297 volumes of scriptures books in 928 cases,frescoes of 911sq.km and 1355 pieces of valuable cultural relics such as musical instruments used in buddhist mass and offering wares .all these are the valuable materials for studying the ancient history .science and culture and arts of china . wutai mountain was also renowned for the revolutionary base area .in the initial period of the war of resistance against japan, wutai mountain was the first base area of resistance against japan behind enemy’s lines in china and the birthplace of shanxi –chahar –hebei border area .in the years of revolutionary war ,the revolutionaries of old generation such as mao zedong ,zhou enlai ,liu shaoqi and zhu de and the international communist fighter batune fought and worked here.

　　today ,what we will tour at first is xiantong temple ,xiantong temple is situated at the south foot of lingjiu peak in the central district of taihuai town and is one of five main mediation places of wutai mountain .it is also the leader temple most worshipp ed in the buddhist circle of wutai mountain .xiantong temple occupies a land of 43700sq.km and has 400 houses and 65 halls in total .it

　　was initially built in the eleventh year of yongping period ,east han dynasty and has a history of nearly 2000 years to date .since the peak of posa top is very similar to the vulture peak of india (the place where sakyamuni taught scriptures of his disciples),it was named lingjiu temple after the name of the mountain later ming emperor of han dynasty added two characters “da fu”in chinese (meaning grandness and creditability )before “lingjiu temple ”so that the complete name of temple was dafu lingjiu temple .it was rebuilt in xiaowen emperor period of north wei dynasty and divided into 12 courtyards .it was also called garden temple because of the garden in front .later ,it war rebuilt once again by taizong emperor of tang dynasty and renamed great huayan temple by wu zetian because the newly translated huayan scriptures were collected here .it finally was granted a horizontal board “large xiantong temple ”by zhu yuanhang,the taizu emperor of ming dynasty[bell tower]bell tower is of two –storeyed and three-eave structure ,and on the beam in the tower is hung a bronze bell,the largest one in wutai mountain .such bell was called long ringing bell and also called nether world bell and cast in july of the forty-eighth year of wanly period ,ming dynasty .with a weight of up to 9999.5jin.[dragon and tiger tablet s]there is no heaven king hall but only two pieces of stone tablets in xiantong temple ,the dragon and tiger tablets we see now .these two tablets have the implied meaning that dragon and tiger is guarding the gate and there is no need to trouble the four main heaven kings .[front courtyard ]the tablet board “rosy clouds decorated heaven city” in gold characters on the top of gate was personally written by qinanlong emperor .in the hall are worshipped 3 statues of bodhisattvas ,with guanyin bodhisattva in the middle and wenshu bodhisattva and puxian bodhisattva on both sides separately ,so it was also called “three-main-scholar hall ” it was also called scripture collection hall because scripture books are fully placed on both sides. in each of the left and right tablet pavilions outside guanyin hall is a tablet .the two tablet pavilions are completely the same in size of tablet ,shape system and pattern, one piece engraved with “tablet inscription of xiantong temple personally written by emperor “ and the other being characterless and called characterless tablet .the stone tablets of wutain mountain are roughly divided into imperial tablet .official document tablet ,merits and virtues tablet ,event record keeping tablet ,poem and writing tablet ,tomb tablet and the special buddha foot tablet and characterless tablet .among the special characterless tablets at home ,three pieces are most attractive ,i e

　　the first is the characterless tablet left on the top of taishan mountain for guarding against the six states after qinshi emperor defeated the six states ;the second is the characterless