Longzang Temple Stele

Longzang Temple Stele

The Longzang Temple Stele is a cultural tourism attraction.

The Longzang Temple Stele is located southeast of the Dabei Pavilion in Zhengding’s Great Buddha Temple. The stele stands 2.2 meters tall and is 0.9 meters wide, featuring 30 lines of text with 50 characters per line. It holds extremely important reference value for the study of calligraphic art and the evolution of script styles from Han clerical script to Tang regular script.

According to the Ji Fu Tong Zhi, the Longzang Temple Stele was erected in the sixth year of the Kaihuang era of the Sui Dynasty (586 AD), and some say the stele was carved even before the temple was built. The inscriptions on the stele feature bold, broad, and powerful characters that herald the style of Tang regular script, resembling the styles of Ouyang Xun, Yu Shinan, and others.

Kang Youwei praised it as “a stele that encapsulates the essence of the Six Dynasties” in his book Guang Zhi Shuang Ji. The text of the Longzang Temple Stele was composed by Zhang Gongzha; unfortunately, like the Zhang Menglong Stele, the name of the calligrapher is not recorded. The inscription details how Wang Xiaoxian, the governor of Hengzhou, encouraged the selection of the site for Longzang Temple and raised funds for its construction, as well as describing the temple’s initial scale—offering significant artistic and historical value.

Sui Dynasty steles hold an important place in the history of Chinese calligraphy, and among them, the Longzang Temple Stele is particularly notable. It inherits the bold, rigorous character of Northern Dynasties steles while retaining the graceful, refined charm of Southern Dynasties styles. It forms a unique style with forceful yet concise brushwork, well-structured, open, lean, and simple layouts.

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