In 2016, news of the haunted ancient well of Zhizhe Temple in Jinhua Mountain, Zhejiang spread locally. For a time, this ancient temple with a history of 1,500 years became a hot topic on the streets and alleys.

In 2016, the news of the haunted ancient well of Zhizhe Temple in Jinhua Mountain, Zhejiang spread locally.

For a time, this ancient temple with a history of 1,500 years became a hot topic in the streets and alleys.

As the topic fermented, more rumors spread.

Some people say that there are hundreds of remains of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the ancient well, which would be strange if you don’t get haunted.

Some people also say that the ancient well is the treasure-hidden place of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, with a large amount of gold, silver and treasures.

Some folk tomb robbers even set their sights on the ancient well and sneaked into the temple in the middle of the night, trying to dig out the treasures there.

At a moment, the originally mysterious and quiet temple attracted countless curious people.

In order to prevent criminals, the temple had to strengthen its vigilance.

The widespread discussion in society has also attracted the attention of the cultural relics protection department, and an archaeological team was quickly sent to conduct investigations.

In the end, the archaeological team dug the ancient well that had been abandoned for hundreds of years for 12 days, and finally discovered a large number of precious cultural relics, and also explored many little-known historical stories.

So what kind of historical origin does this ancient well in Zhizhe Temple in Zhejiang have? What kind of legendary historical story is included behind it?

(ancient well in Zhizhe Temple)

Let's find out.

1. The mysterious Zhizhe Temple

On the southern foot of Jinhua Mountain in Zhejiang, there is an ancient temple hidden in the mountains, which is Zhizhe Temple.

According to records, Zhizhe Temple was built in Southern Dynasty period and has a history of 1500 years.

According to relevant scholars' research, Buddhism was introduced to my country about in the Eastern Han Dynasty period, 1900 years ago.

This shows the long history of Zhizhe Temple. It is commendable that it can still be preserved after 1,500 years of storms and war baptism.

In the history of our country, Buddhism has had a period of prosperity, especially , Tang Dynasty , and Buddhism has almost become the state religion.

Emperors of all dynasties attached great importance to the development of Buddhism. At that time, the Zhizhe Temple was huge in scale and numerous buildings, and it was the largest temple in the area.

The restored landscapes such as Caotang, Shuangqingtang, Leiyin Pavilion, and Yisong Pavilion all originated from the Tang Dynasty.

Later Song Dynasty , Yuan Dynasty , Ming Dynasty , although Ming Dynasty no longer attaches importance to Buddhism as much as the Tang Dynasty, Zhizhe Temple is still well preserved and has undergone several large-scale renovations.

For example, during the Song Dynasty, Song Taizong issued imperial books many times, totaling more than 120 volumes to highlight the importance attached to Zhizhe Temple.

During the Southern Song period, local funds raised once again to build Zhizhe Temple on a large scale. The famous writer Lu You also personally wrote inscriptions for the temple.

During the dynasty change, Zhizhe Temple was destroyed to varying degrees, but the status of this temple is still stable. During the Ming Dynasty, a large-scale construction was also carried out, restoring the prosperity of the temple.

However, during the Republic of China period, a major fire occurred in the temple, and many temples and houses were destroyed by fires.

During the Anti-Japanese War, although the temple was destroyed, there were still more than 60 houses in the building, which were once requisitioned by the Kuomintang as a command center.

After the founding of New China, there were few monks in the temple, only one of them was the host of Monk De and several other young monks.

However, the presidency monk was criticized because he had many temple properties and was labeled as a "landlord". Soon after, the presidency monk moved out of the temple and destroyed a large number of scriptures in the temple.

In the 1960s and 1970s, because the local area wanted to build a cement factory, most of the temple buildings were demolished, which also damaged many cultural relics and monuments in the temple.

(the full view of the repaired Zhizhe Temple)

In recent years, the local government has developed tourism and built temples again. Many temples and temples that were originally demolished have been rebuilt, which has restored this thousand-year-old ancient temple to life.

Amid the rise and fall of 1500 years, an ancient well in the temple was also covered by weeds and dust, disappearing from people's sight.

However, in 2016, this ancient well in Zhizhe Temple actually saw the light of day again, and the cause was the successive "haunted" incidents.

2. Haunted incident

Entering the new century, Zhizhe Temple, a thousand-year-old temple, has been paid attention to by more and more people. Buddhist believers often come here to organize religious activities, and tourists from all over the world have also come to visit.

In order to meet the public's visiting needs, the government decided to repair and expand the Zhizhe Temple.

But during the construction process, when the construction workers were cleaning the ground, they found an ancient well.

Because in the past, most people in rural Zhejiang used similar wells to get water, and still retained water wells in some villages.

So, everyone just treats the ancient well of Zhizhe Temple as an ordinary well.

During construction, workers just cleaned the weeds on the ground and prepared to lay gravel and cement, etc. without paying special attention.

However, one night, a worker stayed on duty at the construction site and he got up to use the toilet in the middle of the night. When I passed by the ancient well, I suddenly heard a "gurgling" sound of water, just like a person exhaling bubbles under the water.

At that time, the worker was frightened and rushed back to the room. Fortunately, other workers were accompanied by him so they could continue to fall asleep.

The next morning, the worker went to the ancient well and looked at it. He didn't find anything unusual. He thought he was just hallucinating, so he continued to work.

However, that night, after other workers left in the middle of the night, a "haunted" incident occurred again. In a trance, he seemed to hear a wailing sound coming from the location of the ancient well.

Suddenly, the worker was scared and sweated in a cold sweat, rolled and crawled back to the room.

A few days later, the haunted news of the ancient well spread quickly.

This ancient well is behind the Great Hall. It is said that it has existed since the beginning of the construction of the temple. However, during the replacement of all dynasties, this ancient well has also been destroyed by war. It was later filled and covered in soil and weeds.

No matter it is the local people or the monks in the temple, no one knows the exact location of the ancient well.

If it weren't for the construction cleaning of the ground, this ancient well might have been buried underground forever. After the haunted incident, it quickly spread throughout the local streets and alleys, and people were talking about it.

(inside the ancient well)

Some people say that during the peasant uprising in the late Song Dynasty, many uprisingers were killed and buried in the ancient well. This ancient well was a gathering place for unjust souls.

Some others said that the host buried all the cultural relics in the temple in the ancient well for preservation before fleeing.

There are even rumors that this is the treasure land of the rebel army. During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Uprising, the peasant uprising army buried all the gold, silver and jewelry snatched from the government into the ancient well.

Those treasures are enough for generations to eat and drink. It is also because of this that after the haunted incident, strangers often came to the ancient well location to investigate in the middle of the night. These people are undoubtedly tomb robbers with ulterior motives.

It seems that more and more people are exploring the ancient well. The monk of the temple quickly reported the situation of the temple to the local government and strengthened his vigilance.

(Ancient Well Archaeological Site)

After receiving the report, the local cultural relics department quickly sent an archaeological team to conduct investigation.

With the arrival of the archaeological team, the mystery of the ancient well of the temple was gradually unveiled.

3. Amazingly discovered

A few days later, the archaeological team quickly conducted rescue exploration and excavation of the ancient well.

After exploration, it was found that the wellhead of this ancient well was hexagonal, with a radius of about one meter. This is much larger than the wells in folk villages.

Archaeological team members gradually cleared the impurities in the well, and gradually revealed the true face of the ancient well.

Ancient wells are different from ordinary water wells. From the top to the bottom, the walls are all made of bluestone slabs, showing a superb architectural level.

The well walls that are tens of meters deep are easy to collapse, but the bluestone slabs are staggered and arranged together, maintaining the stability of the well walls.

More importantly, these stone slabs have been obviously processed manually, with roughly the same specifications, flat surfaces, and a thickness of nearly 20 cm, which is very heavy.

(blue stone slab inside the ancient well)

When building a well, it must have been built from bottom to top. Stone slabs weighing hundreds of kilograms were transported from the bottom of the mountain and then built up one by one. The difficulty can be imagined.

As the excavation deepened, water seepage began to appear in the well, and during that time it caught up with continuous rain, which seriously hindered the progress of archaeology.

In desperation, the archaeological team members could only transport the pump to drain the water.

The water has been drained, and there are new problems. There are a lot of stones and silt underground. Some of the larger sizes can only be broken down and transported out after they are transported out.

At the beginning, some cement stones, rusted steel bars, etc. were dug out, which were obviously construction waste abandoned during the construction of cement plants in the 1960s and 1970s.

However, the more you dig, the more you are more expectant the archaeological team members are. Further down there is some mud.

Archaeologists know that silt appears is almost over, which means that there may be some cultural relics.

Everyone cleaned the silt more carefully. Fortunately, the bottom of the well was cooler, and the last few days were progressing smoothly.

That day, while cleaning the mud, a porcelain suddenly appeared. This discovery has excited archaeologists.

(Celadon water drop bottle unearthed in the ancient well)

After carefully cleaning a celadon bottle, it will be transported to the ground immediately.

The cultural relics experts on the ground had been waiting aside for a long time. They were extremely surprised when they saw the celadon bottle. After several experts jointly identified that the celadon bottle was actually a celadon water droplet from the Song Dynasty, and it was also a top-quality porcelain from Longquan Kiln .

This discovery made experts overjoyed because Longquan kiln represents the top level of porcelain production in the Song Dynasty. Song Dynasty Longquan kiln porcelain has very few existences because of its age.

Moreover, this celadon water droplet is well preserved, and can be regarded as a national treasure-level cultural relic with extremely high archaeological and historical value.

In the subsequent excavation, the staff successively discovered a large number of ancient coins and more than 100 gold and silver ware .

Architecturers on the scene sighed. Fortunately, the rumors of haunted were rumored, otherwise this ancient well and the precious cultural relics inside might have been buried underground forever.

(Archaeologists clean up cultural relics on site)

Many people are surprised, what is the origin of this ancient well that is almost flooded by history? Why are there so many precious cultural relics in it?

Archaeologists conducted further research and discovered more precious historical information.

. The origin of Lu You and the ancient temple

Zhizhe Temple has experienced 1,500 storms and witnessed the changes in many dynasties such as the Song Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty, and Ming Dynasty.

For a long time, Buddhism has developed very prosperously, and in the southern region, Zhizhe Temple has a very high status.

Therefore, during the Tang Dynasty, the Zhizhe Temple was full of incense, and there were more than 120 monks in it. There were even more people coming to the temple to burn incense and pray for blessings every day. Some lay Buddhists even lived in the temple for a while.

Everyone's drinking water is leaning against the ancient well behind the Great Hall.

According to legend, the water in the ancient well is clear and sweet. It is used to make tea and cook rice, which can increase the sweet aroma.

(Old appearance of Zhizhe Temple)

However, with the change of dynasties and the outbreak of war, this ancient well must have become a shelter for some monks to hide important items.

so it's not surprising that there are some gold and silver treasures in it.

Entering modern times, Buddhism once declined, fewer and fewer monks in temples, and ancient wells were gradually abandoned by people.

After the founding of New China, due to economic construction and other reasons, the ancient well was buried underground, so that even the monks in the temple did not know the exact location of the ancient well.

It was not until the haunted incident that the ancient well saw the light of day again.

According to expert research, this ancient well is very difficult to build, wider and deeper than ordinary wells.

The construction of well walls is even more laborious, and it is impossible to build without dozens of people. Therefore, experts believe that this ancient well was officially created in ancient times.

And the rumors about the treasure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom circulating in the local area are not impossible.At that time, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom collected a large amount of gold, silver and treasures during the uprising.

(Stills of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement)

But later, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was quickly suppressed, and some core figures must transfer the property buried in their hands.

Experts speculate that even if the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom did not leave gold, silver and treasures in the well, it is very likely that the officials at that time put the property from their homes into the ancient well in order to avoid the war, and waited for Duan Duan to calm down before taking it out.

Since there is no more evidence, experts can only characterize the cultural relics in the ancient well as "cellars".

"Cellaring" was a normal thing in ancient times of war. When wars occurred, families with wealthy families could not take away a large amount of gold, silver and treasures. Most of them would choose to bury these treasures in the walls, while some buried the treasures underground and put them into deep wells.

In the view of archaeological experts, their focus is not on the cultural relics themselves, but on the historical information contained behind the cultural relics.

For example, the excavated Song Dynasty celadon water drop bottle. A simple porcelain still has a new luster after thousands of years. It represents the highest level of Chinese porcelain production and witnesses the high development of the economy and society at that time.

While excavating the ancient well, archaeologists also stepped up identification and protection of other cultural relics in Zhizhe Temple.

(Inscription of Lu You's "Record of the Reconstruction of the Zhizhe Guangfu Temple")

One of the Song Dynasty's inscriptions "Record of the Reconstruction of the Zhizhe Temple Guangfu Temple" was directly classified as a national first-class cultural relic.

This inscription is a handwritten work by the famous poet Lu You, and has extremely high literary, historical and artistic value.

inscriptions record that in the third year of Jiatai in the Song Ningzong of Song Dynasty, the abbot presided over the collection of funds for the reconstruction of Zhizhe Temple. As the abbot's friend, Lu You was invited to write the inscription for the rebuilt Zhizhe Temple.

The inscription not only clearly states the history of Zhizhe Temple and the several reconstruction processes, but also records the eight letters written by Lu You to the abbot that year.

More importantly, Lu You was 79 years old at that time, and that inscription was the only work he had ever lived in his later years.

The full text of the inscription is written in running and cursive script, with sharp and elegant pen tips, making it a rare masterpiece of calligraphy.

At the same time, because running and cursive steles were popular in the Tang Dynasty and were rarely seen during the Song Dynasty, Lu You used running and cursive steles to set a precedent for the Song Dynasty.

(Xu Xiake's travel route map)

What is even more unexpected is that Lu You's hand-written inscription was discovered by Xu Xiake 400 years later, which caused a wonderful intersection between the poets of the Song Dynasty and the geography scholars of the Ming Dynasty.

5. Xu Xiake's regrets

In the autumn of 1636 AD, Xu Xiake, a famous geographer and traveler in the Ming Dynasty, marched here and discovered the inscription written by Lu You himself. He was extremely shocked and immediately made a high evaluation of "the stele and regular script are all elegant."

also recorded his experience in the travel notes written by Xu Xiake. According to the travel notes, he wanted to copy Lu You's inscriptions at that time, but "I regret that there is no art of refining, so I can't get it all."

Because he did not find Tuogong, he left regrets for Xu Xiake.

left regrets for Xu Xiake, but gave us infinite imaginations in future generations. This is the charm of an ancient well and a stele.

With the reconstruction of Zhizhe Temple, cultural relics workers have discovered more irreversible regrets and have also discovered many unexpected surprises.

(Zhizhe Temple in the Republic of China period)

After the excavation of the ancient well was completed, cultural relics workers tracked and traced the origin of the cultural relics in Zhizhe Temple.

These tracking and traceability have effectively restored the original appearance of Zhizhe Temple and restored many little-known history.

For example, according to an old man in the local area, there was a huge bronze bell cast in Zhizhe Temple. In the early years, the bell sounded crisp and loud, and could be heard several kilometers away. However, later, with the outbreak of the war, the giant bell disappeared.

For example, there are many stone statues and stone lions at the entrance of the temple, each of which is lifelike and majestic, but they have been stolen one after another and are wandering among the people.

In the 1970s, there was an ancient camphor tree in Zhizhe Temple that had been nearly a thousand years old, but because of the construction of a cement plant, camphor tree was also cut down.

These disappeared cultural relics and monuments are regrettable, but there are also exciting and surprising places.

In addition to the ancient well concentrated on archaeological excavation, there is an extremely exquisite carving work in the Sutra Pavilion not far away - Yusheng Mountain.

This jade mountain carved from Xinjiang Hetian jade is 23.69 meters long, 4.25 meters thick, and 6.6 meters high. It is said that it took five years to complete.

The theme of Yusheng Mountain is Thousand-Armed Guanyin . Another 33 Guanyin shuttles between the mountains and forests, reflecting a high level of carving skills.

(Architectural Landscape of Zhizhe Temple)

Some years ago, in order to restore this thousand-year-old ancient temple to its original appearance, the local area carried out large-scale reconstruction and expansion of Zhizhe Temple.

Most of the architectural styles are Tang Dynasty styles, with the purpose of recreating the style of the temple's heyday.

After full construction, Zhizhe Temple has become an excellent tourist attraction. The historical Jiulong Wall was built at the entrance of the temple, followed by the beautifully landscaped Heart Lotus Pond.

When you come here, you can immediately feel the strong Buddhist atmosphere and become an important scenic spot for tourists from all walks of life to cultivate their body and mind.

Cultural relics contain historical traces and the roots of our nation.

The restoration of those buildings is more about letting people understand the history that disappeared in the clouds and letting people feel the profound and profound traditional culture behind it.

(now Zhizhe Temple)

In recent years, our country has become increasingly important to cultural relics and archaeology, and archaeological work on "ancient wells" in various places has also been constantly making many new discoveries.

6. Reappearing the mysterious ancient well

For example, in 2002, when the water conservancy project was being built in the ancient city of Liye, Longshan County, Hunan Province, archaeologists discovered an ancient well in a middle school playground.

Unexpectedly, after excavation by archaeological experts, the inconspicuous pit turned out to be a well from the Qin Dynasty period.

The local water sources are abundant, and the people of the people do not need to dig such a deep well at all. Why should a well be built here?

After repeated research, archaeologists finally confirmed that this was a war preparation well for marching and fighting. As the excavation work progresses, a major historical relics are presented to people.

(ancient well excavation site)

That day, archaeologists suddenly found a piece of wood in the well. Not only that, there were traces of text on the wood chips.

This means that this is a bamboo slip from the Qin Dynasty, and this major discovery is exciting.

has one piece and there must be more! Archaeologists immediately reported this major discovery to the Hunan Provincial Archaeology Institute and requested to draw more professional forces to cooperate with the excavation.

A few days later, people found that there were not only a large number of bamboo slips, but also important cultural relics such as iron hooks and copper spears used for wars at that time. Finally, a total of 36,000 bamboo slips and hundreds of weapons and cultural relics were cleaned up.

, especially those bamboo slips with words, quickly caused a sensation. Experts immediately protected the bamboo slips, and at the same time carried out research work, interpreting a large amount of historical information from the Qin Dynasty.

According to the bamboo slips, the ancient city of Liye was called "Qianling" at that time. It was once an important castle of Chu State , but it was soon destroyed by Qin State .

However, the Qin Dynasty only existed for 16 years, and then a peasant uprising broke out. The main force that destroyed Qin was the people of Chu who were hated.

Under the attack of the Chu people, the Qin army stationed in "Qianling" was quickly eliminated. Before they were defeated, they threw a large number of bamboo slips into this deep well.

(Underground Liye Qin Slips)

Unexpectedly, these bamboo slips will see the light of day again after thousands of years.

In addition to recording rich historical information, people were surprised to find that there is also the multiplication formula we are using now on the bamboo slip.

There is no doubt that a large number of bamboo slips fill the gap in our research on the history of the Qin Dynasty, and more vividly and comprehensively shows us the real scene of the Qin State at that time.

According to the bamboo slips, the "Qianling" at that time had a developed population and prosperous business and tourism. It was a bustling town connecting the north and south.

Moreover, there are many people from different ethnic groups living here. They communicate and integrate with each other and reproduce offspring, which plays an important role in promoting cultural prosperity and ethnic integration.

Later, the archaeological community praised this well as "the first well in China". Some experts even compare this well with Terracotta Warriors and Horses .

To this day, we are still the multi-ethnic country with the most ethnic groups in the world. The ancient well of Xiangxi provides strong evidence for the origin of the Chinese nation.

(Russia of Liye)

Later, with the advancement of archaeology, people also discovered traces of the Neolithic Age in the ancient city of Liye. Not only that, the later Shang and Zhou , Warring States , and Qin and Han cultures were all reflected.

After thousands of years of evolution, who would have thought that the ancient city of Riye has become a modern and beautiful town now.

But no matter how the times develop, the residents here still maintain the customs of the ancestors. They drive cattle to plow the fields and carry baskets to the market, and live happily here.

This is the charm and value of cultural relics and archaeology. It travels through time and space, reproduces historical pictures hundreds or even thousands of years ago to us, bringing us infinite reverie and imagination.

At the same time, those sleeping historical relics are also showing the future: we continue the blood of Chinese civilization and are moving towards the future firmly and heroically with incomparable pride and self-confidence.

Reference:

Jinhua released, a thousand-year-old well was discovered in Zhizhe Temple in Jinhua. Will it be the well written in Xu Xiake’s travel notes? 2016-04-25

Jinhua Mountain Party and Government Office, Zhizhe Temple, 2019-08-19

Wucheng Tourism, Ancient Temple Winter Rhyme丨Visit Zhizhe Temple "famous temple in Jiangnan" and feel the Zen time that has traveled through thousands of years, 2020-12-22

Zhejiang News "Ancient Well appeared in the Thousand-year-old Temple Zhizhe Temple", 2016-04-24