Hanzhong Wanshou Temple

　　Wanshou Temple is located in Hantai District, Hanzhong City, Shaanxi Province. It was first built in the 16th year of the Hongwu era during the Ming Dynasty (1383). The original site was on South Street within the city of Hanzhong. The temple follows the Linji school of Chan Buddhism. Its current structures—including the Guanyin Hall, Mahavira Hall, Ksitigarbha Hall, Jade Buddha Hall, Heavenly King Hall, and the mountain gate—were all built in recent years. There is also a stupa and one stone stele on the temple grounds. The site not only boasts beautiful scenery and unique landscapes but also houses numerous cultural relics and historical sites.

　　According to Venerable Master Xuxue, the abbot of Hanzhong Wanshou Temple, the origins of the temple are rooted in three legendary accounts...

　　The first account states that in the "Han Nan Xu Xiu Fu Zhi" (Supplementary Chronicles of Southern Hanzhong), under the sacrificial rites section on page 37, there are just ten characters: “Wanshou Temple in the west of the prefectural seat, built in the 16th year of Hongwu.” The second account comes from Qing Dynasty scholar Wang Chengzhai’s "Dong Li Yi Yu" (Recollections by the Eastern Hedge), which reads: “Of the temples built in the early Ming Dynasty within the prefectural seat, three remain today: the Jingming Temple, the Wanshou Temple, and the Prefectural City God Temple. The first two have flourished into monastic complexes, each housing over two hundred monks and nuns—all of whom follow the Linji lineage, engaging in farming and meditation. The City God Temple is home to over a hundred Taoist priests who preach ghostly doctrines to the people, hence its flourishing incense offerings.” The third account says that elderly residents of Hanzhong in their seventies can still vividly describe the temple’s appearance in its complete form. Wanshou Temple covered an area of about fifteen mu (approximately 1 hectare), with a traditional architectural layout and grand halls, including the Four Heavenly Kings Hall, the Heavenly Beings Hall, the Maitreya Hall, the Skanda Hall, the Mahavira Hall (with the Eighteen Arhats), the Bodhidharma Hall, the Guanyin Hall, and the Western Trinity Hall, all fronted by a mountain gate. Within the compound were three large kitchen facilities that could serve hundreds of vegetarian meals during temple events, providing delicious plant-based food to monks, nuns, and lay followers. There were also two scripture depositories storing precious Mahayana Buddhist texts and high-quality publications sent from the Jinling Scripture Printing House and scripture distribution centers in Shanghai and Hangzhou.

　　The Wanshou Temple of today is no longer the structure built during the Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty. From its inception, it has endured numerous invasions and destructions across turbulent times. Especially in modern history, the temple suffered repeated catastrophic damage...

　　During the Anti-Japanese War, troops stationed in the temple gradually destroyed all the Buddha statues in its halls. By the late 1960s, as large-scale factional conflicts broke out in Hanzhong, the temple became a target—its halls were smashed, Buddha and bodhisattva statues were completely demolished, and all ritual implements, cultural relics, scriptures, and books were ruined, leading to the total destruction of the once-renowned ancient Wanshou Temple. After the conflicts subsided, many organizations divided the temple grounds among themselves, converting the historic architecture into modern buildings, thus erasing the 600-year-old legacy of Hanzhong’s Wanshou Temple.

　　After the reform and opening-up, the government began to fully restore policies on ethnic and religious freedom. With the support of the Hanzhong Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government, Wanshou Temple was relocated to Sanlidian Village in the western suburbs of the city, where normal religious activities resumed. In recent years, the temple invested over 300,000 yuan to construct a two-story, pavilion-style mountain gate in front of the Heavenly King Hall, complete with side rooms. Additionally, over 600,000 yuan was invested to build a stupa and a Six-Harmony Vajra Tower on the northern and southern sides of the Heavenly King Hall. In 2002, a large-scale Five Contemplations Dining Hall and a major chanting hall were built south of the Mahavira Hall.