The Hanging Temple, also Hanging Monastery or Xuankong Temple is a temple built into a cliff (75-metre (246 ft) above the ground) near Mount Heng in Hunyuan County, Datong City, Shanxi Province, China. The closest city is Datong, 64.23-kilometre (39.91 mi) to the northwest. Along with the Yungang Grottoes, the Hanging Temple is one of the main tourist attractions and historical sites in the Datong area. Built more than 1,500 years ago, this temple is notable not only for its location on a sheer precipice but also because it is the only existing temple with the combination of three Chinese traditional religions: Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. The structure is kept in place with oak crossbeams fitted into holes chiseled into the cliffs. The main supportive structure is hidden inside the bedrock.[1] The monastery is located in the small canyon basin, and the body of the building hangs from the middle of the cliff under the prominent summit, protecting the temple from rain erosion and sunlight. Coupled with the repair of the dynasties, the color tattoo in the temple is relatively well preserved.
The Hanging Temple, located about 60 kilometers southeast of Datong, China, in the Shanxi province, is one of the world’s forgotten wonders. Clinging to a crag of Hengshan mountain, in apparent defiance of gravity, it consists of 40 rooms linked by a dizzying maze of passageways.
The temple is said to have been built by a monk named Liao Ran during the late Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534) and restored in 1900. It was constructed by drilling holes into the cliffside into which the poles that hold up the temples are set.
Interestingly, the temple is dedicated to not just one religion, but three, with Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism all practiced within the temple and represented in 78 statues and carvings throughout the temple.
History
According to legend, construction of the temple was started at the end of the Northern Wei dynasty by only one man, a monk named Liaoran (了然). Over the next 1,400 years, many repairs and extensions have led to its present-day scale.[2]
Architecture
The entire 40 halls and pavilions are all built on cliffs which are over 30-metre (98 ft) from the ground. The distance from north to south is longer than from east to west and it becomes higher and higher from the gate in the south to north along the mountain. With brief layout, it includes the Qielan Hall (Hall of Sangharama), Sanguan Hall (Hall of Three Officials, 三官殿), Chunyang Hall (纯阳殿), Hall of Sakyamuni, Hall of Three Religions (三教殿) and Guanyin Hall.[3]
Hall of Three Religions
The Hall of Three Religions mainly enshrines Buddhist deities as well as both Taoism and Confucianism. The statues of Sakyamuni (middle), Lao-Tze (left) and Confucius (right) are enshrined in the hall. This reflects the prevailed idea of Three Teaching Harmonious as One (三教合流) in the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1911).[3]