Text/Wang Keming
The Town God's Temple in Laoguan County is an ancient building complex located in Yulei Mountain Park (one of the entrances to the Dujiangyan Scenic Area) at the foothills of Yulei Mountain to the west of the ancient city of Guanxian County, Dujiangyan City, Sichuan. According to research by relevant people, today, except for a few places such as Shanghai due to special circumstances, the City God's temples that once spread all over the country have basically disappeared. In the entire Chengdu area, only the City God's temple in Dujiangyan City has been relatively completely preserved. .
Nowadays, the Town God's Temple in Laoguan County echoes with the Songmao Ancient Road next to the temple and the Ximen Ancient City Wall in Laoguan County behind the temple, and many other historic sites and attractions. They are of different heights and are hidden in the dense woods of Yulei Mountain. The tinkling iron horses on the eaves echo the chirping of birds and the breeze of pine trees to welcome Chinese and foreign tourists. Although there are no morning and evening offerings, evening drums and morning bells, it is as beautiful as the aura of the Confucius Temple, which can also make Chinese and foreign tourists stop and take a rest, and feel relaxed.
You can visit temples, admire statues, appreciate historical sites, enjoy the beautiful scenery, recall the present and recall the past while learning about folklore, reflect on the past, and highlight the profound cultural heritage of China's famous historical and cultural cities.
The spring scenery of the Town God’s Temple in Laoguan County. Photo by Wu Xiaoxian/Photo
How was the status of the Town God elevated?
City God originated from the totem worship of Yong (City) and Water (Hong) by the ancients.
Since the Zhou Dynasty , the imperial court has had a ceremony to pay homage to the City God. Both "City" and "Huang" are one of the eight gods worshiped in the "Zhou Palace" every year. "City" originally refers to a high wall built with excavated earth, and "Hong" refers to a city moat (the one with water is a pool, and the one that dries up is a god); "City" and "Hong" complement each other and together constitute protection Important military facilities for urban security have become the natural patron saint of the place.
Therefore, in old China, almost every county had a Town God's Temple. Letting the City God protect local security and upgrading the City God's sacrifice to the level of a national ritual system may have been the wishful thinking of ancient emperors, civil servants and generals. However, ordinary people in old China regard the City God Bodhisattva as their own protector when they are in a weak position. They believe that it can detect right from wrong, have insight into the darkness, believe that he is impartial and selfless, and can punish evil and promote good, thus giving them a virtual society. Supervisory function: "The city and the God are under control, and their power and spirit are there; misfortune and good fortune are good, and rewards and punishments are selfless." (Sun Tianning's "Rebuilding the Monument of the God's Temple in Guanxian County")
, especially in the Northern Song Dynasty, was destroyed, During the founding period of the Southern Song Dynasty , the mythical historical legend of "The mud horse crossed King Kang" further enhanced the status of the city god.
Kang Wang Zhao Gou was chased by the Jin soldiers to the Yangtze River. At the critical moment when he was desperate, Zhao Gou was able to cross the natural chasm of the Yangtze River with the help of a mount sent by the city god, and became Gaozong, thus creating the history of the Southern Song Dynasty. In addition to being grateful, Zhao Gou decreed that the City God be conferred the title of "King of Fu De", and ordered the construction of City God temples all over the world, and added the Horse King Hall in the City God's temple to show his respect and gratitude for the sacred horse.
Since the Tang and Song Dynasties, and until the demise of the Qing Dynasty for more than a thousand years, every county magistrate must go to the City God's Temple to offer incense and pray for new officials when they take office, or when there are floods, fires, wars, plagues, and every New Year and New Year's Eve. Assist in handling local government affairs, eliminate disasters and avoid disasters, and ensure peace and prosperity for the country and the people.
In normal times, devout and kind-hearted people, whether they are scholars, farmers, businessmen or men and women, go to the City God's Temple to offer incense and worship, pray for fortune-telling, and make wishes in order to eliminate disasters and pray for survival, etc., in order to seek the blessings of the City God Bodhisattva: to attract wealth and atone for sins. Disasters, good weather, good life, good luck, and peace every year. Therefore, the incense in the Chenghuang Temple has always been very prosperous.
The archway of the Town God's Temple in front of Yulei Mountain Wang Keming/photo
The former glory of the Town God's Temple in Laoguan County
According to the "City God's Temple Archives" of District 1 of Guan County in 1943, the location of the Town God's Temple in Laoguan County was named Longwang Pond in ancient times. It has a mountain on its back and faces the city. It is built according to the mountain. It is connected to the ancient Songmao Road and overlooks the whole city. The palaces are deep and the temples are majestic and very spectacular.
Its founding time and original address are unknown, but from the history of Zhu Yuanzhang's canonization of the city god of the world with corresponding titles in the second year of Hongwu (1369), it can be seen that Laoguan County should have built a city god temple in the Ming Dynasty.
According to the "Qianlong Guan County Chronicle" and related archives, the Ming Dynasty City God Temple was destroyed by war in the early Qing Dynasty. Starting from the Shunzhi and Kangxi years in the early Qing Dynasty, some people set up altars at the foot of Yuping Mountain to worship the City God. By the third year of Yongzheng (1725), some monks came to preside over the affairs of worshiping the City God.
City God's Temple was originally a Taoist temple, but due to its particularity, its abbot was either a monk or a Taoist, and the situation varied from place to place. This is the "state religion" that the doctrines espoused by the City God's Temple combines the views of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. "Decided by the characteristics. For example, before 1949, the Chenghuang Temple outside the north gate of Chengdu was hosted by Buddhists.
A letter from the abbot of the City God's Temple issuing a management certificate to the four realms of the Ming Dynasty
According to Sun Tianning's "Rebuilding the City God's Temple Stele", in the forty-seventh year of the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty (1782), the abbot Taoist Zhang Laixi "inspiring kind thoughts and full of sincerity" "It took three years to collect materials, build large-scale construction projects, rebuild temples, and repair courtyards." In the 30 years before and after, Taoist Zhang had repaired it several times, and "planted extensively and flourished, and worked hard to I would like to maintain it, with thousands of green cypresses and ten acres of lush green firs."
From then on, the Town God's Temple in Laoguan County "has a majestic building, a high terrain and a distant view of the sky; its sound is so powerful that people's hearts are solemn and gods listen to it." Nearly a hundred years later, at the Town God's Temple in Laoguan County, "the spiritual flag turned and the wind blew from the pines on the ridge; when the chime was heard, it knocked the moon through the bamboos among the rocks": the mountains, forests, temples and incense were all peaceful and prosperous.
However, the good times did not last long. In the third year of Guangxu (1877), a sudden fire destroyed it. The following year, the county magistrate Lu Baode presided over the reconstruction. According to the "Additional Chronicles of Guanxian County·Picture Research" compiled in the twelfth year of Guangxu (1886), the main buildings of the Town God's Temple in Laoguan County include a main hall with 12 layers, a side hall with 6 layers, and five archways. The entire building faces west to east, facing Guancheng Central Avenue, and is integrated with the architectural style of the ancient city of Guanxian County. Since the day it was built, it has become a unique scenery among the scenic spots and historic sites in Laoguan County.
After 1949, the Town God's Temple in Laoguan County lost its incense and gradually lost its former liveliness.
Ten Halls of the Town God's Temple
The Town God's Temple in Laoguan County was reborn for tourism
From the 1950s to the 1970s, the Town God's Temple in Laoguan County was often put to use: various People's Congress and CPPCC meetings arranged accommodation here many times. Local enterprises produce here, and the Guanxian Children's Palace was once located here.
In the 1960s, the clay sculptures, wood carvings, stone carvings and other cultural relics of the Town God's Temple were damaged and destroyed. Coupled with an unknown fire in 1977, the Town God's Temple in Laoguan County, which had been rebuilt for a hundred years since the fourth year of Guangxu (1878), was once again damaged and destroyed. The ruins of the wall seem to speak of its past glory.
In 1978, in order to meet the needs of economic development, the Guan County People's Government expanded Yuping Mountain where the City God Temple is located into Yulei Mountain Forest Park and rebuilt the City God Temple. In accordance with the idea of developing tourism, the layout of the City God Temple has also been adjusted accordingly.
Today, the Chenghuang Temple covers an area of more than 3,000 square meters and a construction area of more than 1,700 square meters. Its layout is the same as before. The main building can be divided into two parts, the upper and lower parts. The lower part is dominated by the Ten Halls, and the upper part is dominated by the Chenghuang Hall.
The main gate of the City God's Temple is the Lingguan Tower. There is a stage in front of the left side. It used to be built of wood and stone, and plays were performed all year round. Most of them were to publicize the content of punishing evil and promoting good, and urging people to be filial, do good, and uphold justice and loyalty. There are stalls in the open space of the verandah under the stage, selling tribute supplies such as scented wax paper money and silver and yellow watches. Of the original site of the stage, only the empty dam remains.
The couplets on both sides of Lingguan Tower are: "The floating clouds on the jade barrier and the mountains and rivers compete for beauty; the waves and warm streets of Dujiang compete for beauty" (written by Fan Wenzhao, written by Wang Li). Going up to Lingguan Tower, there is a steep staircase about 30 meters long. On both sides are ten halls that are symmetrical, well-proportioned and very distinctive. Most of its buildings have small green tile roofs, either double or triple, with layers of eaves and brackets, just like a flock of geese spreading their wings, which is very spectacular.
In the past, the characters and animals in the ten halls were all based on the scenes in the underworld and the eighteenth level of hell in folklore; today's ten halls are the characters and animals related to the story of Dujiangyan's water control in Guan County folklore and scene image shaping.Such as "Er Lang Carrying the Mountain to Catch the Sun", "White Dragon Pond", "Er Lang Fighting the Dragon", "Zhao Yu Killing the Jiao", "Wang Po Capturing the Dragon", "Golden Rooster and Lotus Fighting the Black Dragon", "Li Bing Locking the Dragon", "Wang Niang Tan", "Han Po Long Fu" and " "The Yellow Dragon Carries the Boat" and so on. These statues are realistic yet exaggerated, exquisite, moving, and lifelike, making the local characteristics of the City God Temple more distinctive and prominent.
The archway in front of the Town God's Temple in Laoguan County [English] Isabella Bird/Photographed in 1898
Going up again, at the end of the steep staircase, we arrived at the site of the original Yuquan Tower (that is, the Dragon King Pool recorded in the archives), which is now named Kuixing Hall, there is a couplet: "Pink battlements are across the sky, thousands of miles of snow-capped mountains are like the north of the Great Wall; red buildings carry water, and a bank of smokey willows prevails in the south of the Yangtze River" (written by Wang Jingyuan, written by Wang Li).
Go up to the hall and go to the left, there is an archway leading to the sky, and ahead is the Mawang Hall. There are sculptures of a horse and a warrior on the left and right sides of the Horse King Hall. One horse's hair is black and the other is red.
Going up through the Mawang Hall, there are a series of parallel antique buildings such as the City God's Hall, the City God's Empress Hall and the Guanyin Hall (originally the Dragon King's Hall). There are many painted gold statues in each hall, especially the statues in the Chenghuang Hall, which have been restored to their original appearance. In the past, there were big wooden signs saying "Quiet" and "Avoidance" in the Chenghuang Hall.
According to the description in front of the Temple of the Empress, according to Guanxian folklore, the City God Empress was originally a lady named Cai from Taiping Street in this city. She came to the Temple to offer incense and was favored by the City God, so the yin and yang were separated forever and she became the City God Empress. The Chenghuang Temple Fair is held every year on the 28th day of the fifth lunar month.
Behind the City God's Hall is the Yulei Mountain Forest Park, a national forest park with thousands of trees.
In the original City God's Temple, from the mountain gate to the Mawang Hall, City God's Hall and other halls and lintels, there are many plaques and couplets, mostly with contents to warn and educate the world. Today, only the Chenghuang Hall still exists, such as: "Zhang Heng is selfless in nature, and he is clear about it. When he thinks about it, he should not deceive himself; the good and the evil will eventually be rewarded. Right and wrong, no one has been let go in the end." (Quan Shuili Tongzhi Xu Chuanshan's book); another example: "There are many things in the world of good and evil, don't change your mind until now; Yin and Yang are observing together, you must find your place and turn back early" (Lu Baode's book in the fourth year of Guangxu) and so on.
Most of the current couplets and plaques are written by local celebrities. Their content is closely integrated with reality and expresses emotions on the spot, praising the great rivers and mountains of Dujiangyan City and the scenic spots of reform and opening up. Only the Temple of the Empress still has a statue of the City God, so the content of its couplet is written according to the needs of sacrificial rituals: "To rule the underworld to be honest, to be fair and just to be called the Emperor Yin Cao; to lead the inner palace to be virtuous, and to be kind to the imperial concubine" (Wan Tianyin, Wang Bannong) Book).
During the "5.12" Wenchuan earthquake, the Chenghuang Temple withstood the test and was basically intact. After careful repairs, the Dujiangyan Municipal Government built an antique tower on the mountain ridge behind it, named Yulei Pavilion.
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