The Miaoying Temple (), also known as the "White Stupa Temple" (), is a Chinese

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

temple on the north side of Fuchengmennei Street in the Xicheng District of

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

. The temple was a monastery of the Sakya school of

Tibetan Buddhism Tibetan Buddhism is a form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet, Bhutan and Mongolia. It also has a sizable number of adherents in the areas surrounding the Himalayas, including the Indian regions of Ladakh, Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, D ...

and is now open to the public as a museum. The temple's White Pagoda was built 1279 in the

Yuan Dynasty The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian language, Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Div ...

and is the oldest and largest Tibetan Buddhist pagoda in China.

History

Yuan Dynasty

The temple's pagoda was built on the site of a previous pagoda of Yong'an temple in the Liao Dynasty (916–1125). The temple was built in 1279 under the orders of Emperor Kublai Khan and was originally named "Dashengshou Wan'an Temple". The White Pagoda built in the Yuan Dynasty is the oldest and largest Tibetan Buddhist pagoda in China. In 1961, "Miaoying Temple White Pagoda" was announced by the State Council of the People's Republic of China as one of the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units. Arniko impressed Kublai Khan (Genghis Khan’s grandson) by repairing a bronze statue, and went on to build the White Dagoba.

Ming and Qing Dynasties

There were temples built on the sites since the Liao and Yuan dynasties. The temple's famous white stupa also dates to the Yuan Dynasty to house a relic of the Buddha. However, the present-building dates to the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...

as well as its given name, "Miaoying Si", meaning "Temple of Marvellous Response".

People's Republic of China

In 1961, then Chinese Premier

Zhou Enlai Zhou Enlai ( zh, s=周恩来, p=Zhōu Ēnlái, w=Chou1 Ên1-lai2; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman, diplomat, and revolutionary who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China from September 1954 unti ...

signed a Proclamation stating that the Temple was to be protected as a National Treasure. This Proclamation kept the White Stupa safe during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. In 1976, the temple was seriously damaged by the Tangshan earthquake. The top of the stupa tilted to one side, the bricks and mortar supporting the stupa crumbled, and many relics were broken. In 1978, the Beijing Department of Cultural Relics undertook the task of repairing and renovating the temple. The courtyards, the four corner-pavilions, the Hall of the Buddhas of the Three Ages, the Hall of the Heavenly Kings (Tianwang dian) in front of the stupa, the Hall of the Seven Buddhas and the stupa itself were repaired and renovated. The complex was again renovated in 2010. File:Miaoyingsi baita.jpg, The White Pagoda File:Miaoyingsi shanmen.jpg, The gate of the temple File:Statue of Araniko in Miaoying Temple.jpg, Statue of the Nepali architect, Araniko, who helped construct the temple's Pagoda File:Miaoying Temple white stupa 1.jpg, From the sideview

References

External links