Wuyi Yanfu Temple

Wuyi Yanfu Temple

Wuyi Yanfu Temple is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

Yanfu Temple is located beside Fuping Mountain, east of Taocun Village in Taoxi Town, Wuyi County. It was originally built in the second year of the Tianfu era of the Later Jin Dynasty (937 AD) by the monk Zongyi, and was initially named Futian Temple. During the Shaoxi era of the Song Dynasty (1190–1194), it was granted the name Yanfu. In the ninth year of the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty (1670), the Guanyin Hall and the two corridors were rebuilt. From the eighth year of the Yongzheng reign (1730) to the thirteenth year of the Qianlong reign (1748), the main hall underwent multiple renovations, and the Heavenly King Hall as well as side corridors were added. In the thirty-first year of the Guangxu reign (1905), the Guanyin Hall was rebuilt again. The current architectural complex is arranged along the central axis, consisting of the mountain gate, the Heavenly King Hall, the main hall, and the Guanyin Hall. On both sides are side corridors, with a Longevity Pond and the Guanyin Hall between the halls, and a stone stream well at the back.

The main hall was rebuilt in the fourth year of the Yuanguang era of the Yuan Dynasty (1317), making it the earliest surviving Yuan Dynasty structure discovered in southern China. The hall has a square floor plan, with both width and depth measuring 11.8 meters, and five bays. It features a double-eave hip-and-gable roof, with the lower eave added during renovations in the Tianshun era of the Ming Dynasty (1457–1464). Except for the outer eave columns, all others are octagonal tapering columns. The column bases include lotus-petal-patterned inverted-bowl bases atop stone pedestals, and another type of column base shaped like an inverted bell. Between the front eave columns and the inner columns are used through-tenons, topped with bracket arms (dougong), with the inner bracket arms shaped like melon posts, their lower ends carved into eagle-beak forms — an early surviving example in ancient Chinese architecture. The main hall’s depth consists of eight rafters (or ten if including the double-eave section). There is no dwarf column beneath the flat beam, but there is a bracket block in the middle of the beam without a strut. Below the architrave is a secondary beam, and no horizontal beam (púbǎi fāng) is used — a common Yuan Dynasty construction method in the south. Between the bottom of the flat beam and the tops of the inner columns, an arched moon beam is added to function as a tension member — an early example of the use of such arched moon beams in southern China.

The bracket sets on the main hall consist of three brackets on the central bay, and one each on the side and end bays. On the mountain face, from south to north, the first, second, and fourth bays each have one bracket, the third bay has three, and the upper eave brackets have six tiers with single tempo and double downward Angs (bracket arms), using a single arch design. The first jump of the central bracket is a central bracket arm without a heart, while the second and third jumps are downward Angs with a V-shaped profile and an unusually large lower end. The lower eave brackets use smaller materials than the upper ones, featuring five tiers with double tempo and single transverse arms, using a heartless design, and the rear section has double tempo and heartless as well.

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Further Reading:

· Fourth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units