Chaozhou Kaiyuan Buddhist Temple of China

Chaozhou Kaiyuan Buddhist Temple is located at the centre of Chaozhou City---one of the famous historical and cultural cities of China,originally named as Lifeng Temple,and was rebuilt and renamed as Kaiyuan Temple in the year of Kaiyuan 26(A.D7380)of the Song dynasty.The Temple has been well known to the world and being the first ancient temple in easteen Guangdong province because of its grand scale,magnificent halls and pavilions,dignity of its Buddhist figures,a big amount of cultural relics,and a galaxy of high skilled artworks,attracting a large numbers of pilgrims at home and abroad. The Temple occupied several hundred must of land for its original scale, but was reconstructed more than ten times in the long and changing historical processes. No matter how it changed the three sections layout remainsunchanged with the building structures at the central axis as the Screen Wall,the Main Entrance,the Heavenly God Temple,the Daxiong Temple,the Scripture Hall,and the jade Buddha Pavilion.On the east side(right side)are the Guest rooms, the Ground God Temple,the Fast Dinning Room,and the monk’s houses, with fine decorated houses and the founder’s memorial halls. On the west side(left side)are the Buddhist Abbot Hall,the Guangyin Pavilion,the Huiyei Hall,the monk’s houses, the Heavenly Gods Pacilion,and the Lingdong Buddhism Academy newly built in recent years, thus forming the ancient architecture groups with the characteristics of Chinese quadrangle courtyard,and keeping the solemn silence architecture style of the palace of Song and Tang Dynasty,well known to the world as the pear of art of ancient Chinese architectures.