GaoDu Jingde Temple

GaoDu Jingde Temple

Jingde Temple in GaoDu is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

Jingde Temple in GaoDu Village, GaoDu Town, Zezhou County, was once known as one of the "Four Famous Ancient Temples of Old Zezhou," along with Biluo Temple, Xianqing Temple, and Songlin Temple. Historical records indicate that Jingde Temple was established during the Tang Dynasty. However, in the 1950s, this ancient temple, renowned across a hundred li around GaoDu Town, was repurposed as a state granary for grain storage. At that time, people covered the structure with bricks and tiles and painted its surface with white paint, transforming the originally magnificent architecture into dull, square "white boxes."

Half a century later, with the launch of the third national cultural relics survey, the thousand-year-old temple hidden within the “white boxes” finally unveiled its mysterious veil.

During the Cultural Revolution of the last century, all the exposed stone carvings and sculptures of Jingde Temple were chopped off with axes, leaving the stone carvings on the eaves incomplete to this day. However, after Jingde Temple was used as a grain station, its entire exterior was enclosed with bricks, tiles, and wooden boards, which fortunately helped it survive that particular era. Over the years, as some wooden boards have fallen off, it has become clear that the column bases and capitals of the three main halls inside Jingde Temple have not been eroded by rain or weathered by wind. The column bases, brackets, and beams inside the halls have been completely preserved as they were sealed off.

It largely retains the architectural style of the Song and Jin dynasties.

Jingde Temple faces south and is located in GaoDu Village. It is 80 meters long from north to south and 42.2 meters wide from east to west, covering an area of 3,376 square meters. The temple has a two-courtyard layout. Along the central axis from south to north are the front hall, middle hall, and main hall. On the west side of the axis are side rooms, and on the east side are corridor rooms, with side halls on both sides of the main hall.

The main hall, also known as the Dharma Hall or Three Buddha Hall, once enshrined Sakyamuni, the Medicine Buddha, and Amitabha Buddha. The front eave columns of this hall bear inscriptions from the second year of Song Yuan You (1087) and the fifth year of Jin Tai He (1205), providing direct evidence of the hall’s construction period.

South of the main hall is the middle hall, about 20 meters away. Also called the Revolving Buddha Hall or Great Hero Hall, the middle hall once enshrined Sakyamuni, Manjushri Bodhisattva, Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, and Guanyin Bodhisattva. Records indicate that this hall was renovated during the Ming Dynasty. South of the middle hall is the front hall, which once housed the Four Heavenly Kings, Maitreya Buddha, and Skanda Bodhisattva but was damaged during its time as a grain station. Records show that the front hall was renovated during the Yuan Dynasty.

The current layout of Jingde Temple is largely intact, and the rear hall (main hall) largely preserves the architectural style of the Song and Jin dynasties. Its architectural features mainly include three aspects: first, the temple’s floor plan is five bays wide—a very rare feature among surviving contemporary buildings in Jincheng; second, the interior uses a reduced-column design, with only two golden columns used at the central bay, greatly expanding the usable interior space; third, the beam framework uses a combination of rough and finished beams. Above the ceiling (the overhead boarding), the beams are made of roughly hewn timber with almost no processing. Below the ceiling, everything visible from within the hall is carved into crescent-shaped beams, nearly identical to the methods described in the Song Dynasty’s Yingzao Fashi (Treatise on Architectural Methods).

GaoDu Town: Bazhong Town is located in the Zezhou Basin at the southern end of the Taihang Mountains in southeastern Shanxi Province. It controls the north toward Youyan and overlooks the Central Plains to the south. During the Spring and Autumn Period, it was named “Bazhong” after Duke Xiang of Jin relocated the Ba people here during his western campaign against Bashu, boasting 2,000 years of profound cultural heritage. The town governs 44 administrative villages with a population of 620,000, covering a total area of 112 square kilometers. It is close to the Jincheng-Jiaozuo and Changzhi-Jincheng expressways, with the Taiyuan-Jiaozuo Railway and National Highway 207 passing through, making it a strategic hub for transportation between Shanxi and Henan. With flat terrain, mild climate, long history, convenient transport, and abundant coal and iron resources, it is known as the “Number One Town of the Taihang Mountains.”

… More detailed information about GaoDu Town ++

Further Reading:

· Seventh Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units