IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Across Asia : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
C. G. MANNERHEIM
| To Lanchow 34-40 days 12 taels » Ning-sia-fu 20-22 » 7-8 » » Kanchow 42-48 » 12 » » Tun-huang 72-85 » » | To Sining » Lianchow » Suchow » Kucheng » Uliassutai | 39-5o days 32-37 » 48-52 » 74-90 » 40-56 » | 10 13-14 15 | taels » » » » |
» Tientsin 1 arbah (I,000 djin) 70-8o taels
Kweihwa ting possesses many Mongolian (Buddhist) temples which are supposed to have been built in the time of the Emperor Han or T'ang. There must be about a dozen of them. I visited five. With the exception of a couple, all are built in Chinese style and might easily be mistaken for Chinese miao groups of buildings. The wood carving on the front of the buildings is different, however, from what you usually see and bears a strong resemblance to the metchets of the Dungans built in Chinese style. The entrance door is also in the shape of a semicircle in some of the temples. Their religion is occasionally revealed, however, by a suburgan tower in the vicinity. Inside, however, they possess a type of their own, possibly something between Yutai Shan and Tibetan temples that I have seen. — You enter the temple through a large hall of columns with the tall armchair of the foy or senior lama at the back and parallel rows of pew-like benches or small carpets for sitting on. The outer hall, which is set aside for teaching and reading in unison, has no decoration but Buddhist images on the walls and gilded carving on two rows of columns. You enter the next hall, the actual temple, by three large carved and pierced doors similar to the entrance doors, if the temple is not in a separate building placed close up against the first. In either case it is much darker in the temple-hall than in the first, which is itself rather dark. A faint light penetrates by the open door. and a row of small windows above the doors lets in a little more light. The temple-hall is deep, considerably deeper than at Yutai Shan, though this may be an optical illusion, due to the fact that the main idols are placed against the back wall, as in Tibetan temples, and not in the middle of the room as at Yutai Shan and in Chinese temples. •— Three, or often five seated gilt idols, I I /2 or twice as large as life, are enthroned on a high platform placed against the back wall. I think those I saw were made of clay. Each one has a background, carved and gilded, in a semicircle widening slightly at the top. In front of them there is often a row of idols, either standing or seated, but of smaller size — slightly less than lifesize. In front of these there is a row of triangular, coloured, thin screens pointed at the top and decorated with flowers and all kinds of ornaments. They are typical of the local temples and are placed between two or four red wooden columns, considerably lower than the Buddha images, up which carved coloured dragons twine themselves. In front of them there are one or two rows of red wooden cupboards with carvings of dragons, 3 in a row. On these, two or four rows of urns for incense are placed in the shape of vases or animals, fans, cups of water and other ornaments. In front of them, again, opposite the entrance door there are another one or two such solid cupboards with smaller idols, metal mirrors, bronze animals etc. Still further off there is an incense dish with a small lamp in the middle. — Along the side walls, on two platforms, are two rows of standing idols, facing each
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