Yongxing Temple Bell Pavilion

Yongxing Temple Bell Pavilion

The Yongxing Temple Bell Pavilion is a cultural relic protection unit of Yingkou City.

The Yongxing Temple Bell Pavilion is located on the school playground in Toutaizi Village, Jiulongdi Town, Gaizhou City. It is 200 meters east of the Harbin-Dalian Highway and 5.5 kilometers west of the Bohai Bay.

The bell pavilion is a square, four-pillared, hip-and-gable style granite stone building, oriented 1 degree northwest. The four corners are supported by four octagonal stone pillars spaced 185 centimeters apart, which uphold the beam frame and the hip-and-gable style pavilion roof. The lower part has a two-tier granite stone base, 126 centimeters high. There are seven steps leading up to it. The base of the pavilion features a recessed pool measuring 190×130 centimeters and 22 centimeters deep. The overall height of the structure is 530 centimeters. The uppermost stone eaves are 310 meters wide at their broadest point. The lower ends of the four pillars are embedded in the base, while the upper ends are exposed, standing 218 centimeters high. The tops of the pillars are square and tassel-shaped, with notches on the inner side that support the horizontal beams. Above these beams lie intersecting stone lintels—there are no cap moldings. The square ends of the beams protrude 26 centimeters, and the beams are covered with stone slabs carved in the shapes of roofing boards, drip tiles, roof tiles, and tubular tiles, without any rafter tails, flying rafters, or eave connectors. Each side has 22 drip tiles and 21 roof tiles. The east and west slopes are sloping and stepped, covered by three horizontally carved stone slabs, with widths of 32, 63, and 74 centimeters from bottom to top respectively; the north and south hip-and-gable slopes are covered by two horizontally carved stone slabs, with widths of 32 and 63 centimeters from bottom to top. There are no gaps between the joints of the stone slabs. The lowest slab is drilled with a hole through which an iron nail fixes it to the lower lintel. The hip-standing stones are 77 centimeters high, 117 centimeters wide at the bottom, and lack stone blocking, making the ridge beam visible. The main ridge is very short, with an overall length of 152 centimeters and a height of 25 centimeters. In the middle of the ridge is a stone carving resembling a gourd-shaped finial, 28 centimeters high; the western side of the main ridge is carved with lotus petal and yin-yang fish patterns, with rolled-cloud-shaped chiwei (mythical beast) at both ends. The rolled-cloud-shaped vertical ridges have four corner-folding hip ridges. There are no traces of sparrow-scaring bells hanging under the corner eaves. The four vertical pillars are inscribed with couplets: the upper line reads “Morning bells and evening drums awaken the fame-seeking souls of the mortal world,” the lower line reads “Sutras and Buddhist chants call back those lost in the sea of suffering,” and the horizontal inscription reads “The Bell Resounds Like a Whale’s Call.” On the right side, small characters are inscribed: “Completed on the 21st day of the 4th month of the 36th year of Qianlong.”

Inside the pavilion is a dougong (bracket set)-style square-grid caisson ceiling. The four corners of the square-framed beams are supported by the middle sections of the four stone lintels on each side. Above the stone beams are four short columns that hold up two layers of beams, which in turn support the ridge beam. The joints of the stone components are all sealed with white lime.

The central ridge beam of the caisson ceiling is relatively thick and suspends an iron bell. The bell has a double-animal-head knob, about 20 centimeters high. The body of the bell is 103 centimeters tall, with four circular holes on the shoulder, each 9 centimeters in diameter. The lower end of the bell has a sunflower-petal-shaped skirt with a diameter of 90 centimeters and eight petals spaced 21 centimeters apart. The shoulder and skirt are decorated with bosses and floral patterns. The upper and lower bell bodies feature ten rectangular cloud-patterned grids, each cast with the year of the bell’s production and the names of the craftsmen. The middle section has a scroll-patterned band. The grid on the upper northern part of the bell body is cast with the text: “One bright bell from Yongxing Nunnery at Toutaizi, south of Xiongyue City, made on the 15th day of the 5th month in the 17th year of Qianlong, by blacksmiths Meng Jin, La, Yi, and Zhi.” The northeastern grid contains the text “Resident Monk Bao.” The five grids on the lower part of the bell body are cast with the names of sixty-eight donors.

The bell pavilion is generally well preserved. The joints and mortise-and-tenon connections of the various stone components of the pavilion are very tight, with no tilting or sinking observed.

In 1983, the Yongxing Temple Bell Pavilion was designated as a county-level cultural relic protection unit. In 2012, the Yingkou Municipal People’s Government (Ying Zheng [2012] No. 173) designated it as a municipal-level cultural relic protection unit. The protection scope and construction control zone announced by the Yingkou Municipal People’s Government (Ying Zheng [2013] No. 185) are as follows: with the projection line of the Yongxing Temple Bell Pavilion building as the base point, the area extending 10 meters outward in all four directions is the protected zone; the area 15 meters outward to the east, west, south, and north beyond the protected zone is classified as a Category II construction control zone.

Source of information: Municipal Bureau of Culture, Sports, News, and Broadcasting. Contributor: Dong Wenjie.