Summary of Pujiu Temple and Hedong tourism where "The Romance of the West Chamber" took place

Pujiu Temple was the place where Wang Shifu’s drama "The Romance of the West Chamber" took place in the Yuan Dynasty. It was a very famous temple during the Tang and Song Dynasties. Pujiu Temple is located on a high platform in the southeast of Puzhou Town, Yongji City, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province, about five or six kilometers away from the Stork Tower Scenic Area, very close.

Pujiu Temple was built during the period of Wu Zetian in the Tang Dynasty. It was originally called Xiyongqingyuan and is a Buddhist Zen monastery in ten directions. It is said that during the Five Dynasties period, Guo Wei led his troops to besiege Puzhou City for more than a year without breaking through. Later, he sought advice from Pujiu Temple and conquered Puzhou the next day. Guo Wei was very happy to change the name of this temple to Pujiu Temple.

The current Pujiu Temple was rebuilt in the 1980s. There are two old buildings inside, one is the Yingying Tower and the other is the Bodhisattva Cave. The original name of Yingying Pagoda was the glazed pagoda that stored Buddhist relics. The Guanzhong earthquake in 1556 completely destroyed the glazed pagoda and Pujiu Temple. Puzhou City was also severely damaged at that time. The relic pagoda was rebuilt eight years after the Guanzhong earthquake. So the tower we see now is from the Ming Dynasty. Because the story of The West Chamber happened here, this tower was later called Yingying Tower.

The Yingying Tower is one of the four existing echo buildings in my country's classical gardens. You can hear the crisp sound of frogs when you hit the stone on the west side of the tower. There were too many people on the day of the tour, and the tour guide said Shitou didn't hear anything for a long time.

Bodhisattva Cave is another ancient building in Pujiu Temple. It is actually three cave dwellings.

In the Bodhisattva Cave, three Bodhisattvas, Manjushri, Guanyin and Samantabhadra, are enshrined respectively. Only the image of Guanyin Bodhisattva was carved during the Song Dynasty, and the others were carved by later generations.

After the reconstruction, Pujiu Temple is divided into three axes, namely the east, middle and west axes. The east axis takes the Yingying Pagoda as the axis, followed by the mountain gate, the Yingying Pagoda and the Main Hall, all using the Restored in the style of the Tang Dynasty, the Main Hall enshrines three Buddha statues, cultural relics of the late Northern and Southern Dynasties unearthed in 1986.

There are two buildings on both sides of the Main Hall, one is the Xixuan and the other is the Lihua Shenyuan. They were both built according to the content of The Romance of the West Chamber. According to legend, Zhang Sheng went to Beijing to take the exam. On the way, he encountered rain and went to Pu. Visit to Save Temple. By chance, I saw Cui Yingying who was stranded in the temple while helping her father's coffin return to his hometown. The two fell in love at first sight. Xixuan, where Zhang Sheng studied at that time, is on the west side of the Main Hall. The deep pear courtyard where Yingying lives with her mother and maid Matchmaker is on the east side of the Main Hall. Here is the place where Zhang Sheng jumped over the wall to meet the warblers, and there is also the apricot tree where Zhang Sheng stepped on the wall.

There is a performance of The West Chamber every day in Lihua Shen Yuan, and we happened to catch it when we went there.

There are three rooms in the Lihua Shen courtyard, displaying wax figures and scenes based on the story of The West Chamber.

The middle axis is modeled on the buildings of the Song Dynasty, which are the Tianwang Hall, Bodhisattva Cave, Amitabha Hall, Luohan Hall, Ten Kings Hall, and Sutra Pavilion; on the east axis are the Qianmen, the Monk's House, the Withered Wood Hall, and the Zhengfa Hall. , Zhaitang, Xiangji Kitchen, etc.

The tour of Pujiu Temple can be completed in about an hour. The main purpose is to learn about the culture of The Romance of the West Chamber and the later renovated buildings in the temple. If you are still interested, you can also visit the back garden.

So far the four scenic spots in Yuncheng, Shanxi during the National Day holiday have been recorded.

Shanxi Yuncheng plays an important role in history. Many of the names of local counties, towns and even villages have allusions, history and culture; and there are many temples dedicated to ancestors in this place. In addition to the Houtu Temple dedicated to Earth Mother that I introduced earlier, there are also Yongle Palace dedicated to Lu Dongbin (a native of Ruicheng, Yuncheng City), Guandi Temple dedicated to Guan Yu, and Jiwang Temple dedicated to Houji (this Ji is the Ji of Sheji, which refers to the grain). God), the Mausoleum of Emperor Shun, etc., are scattered like cultural pearls on the land of southern Shanxi.

The picture above is a promotional slogan I took in Yuncheng City, "The Yellow River flows eastward from here, and this place was first called China." The slogan is so exciting that it can be seen that the people of Hedong have great respect for their own culture. The pride of heritage shows the richness of this land. There are too many famous people and too many myths and stories here. In ancient times, Nuwa made stones to mend the sky, Shennong tasted herbs, Yu Gong moved mountains, Jingwei filled the sea, Dayu controlled floods, Shun cultivated Mount Li, etc. all happened here. . The famous statesman Zhang Yi, the famous general Li Mu, and the water conservancy expert Li Bing in the Warring States Period; the famous generals Wei Qing, Huo Qubing, Huo Guang, Guan Yu, Zhang Liao, and Xu Huang in the Han Dynasty; the famous generals Wei Chigong, Xue Rengui, Guo Ziyi, and the famous Prime Minister Pei Du (from the Pei family in Hedong) in the Tang Dynasty Sima Guang, the famous prime minister in the Song Dynasty, Wei Shuo (Mrs. Wei), the famous female calligrapher in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Di Qing, the famous general, Wang Qiong, an important official in the Ming Dynasty, and Yu Chenglong, the most honest official in the Qing Dynasty, were all born here. The Hedong area has made an indelible contribution to the development of Chinese civilization. The famous thinker Xunzi during the Warring States Period, the conservancyist Li Bing, Faxian, the first Chinese monk who traveled west to seek Buddhist scriptures, Wang Tong, the great Confucian of the Sui Dynasty, Wu Zetian, the empress of the first generation, and the poets Wang Bo, Wang Han, Wang Wei, Wang Zhihuan, Wang Changling, Lu Lun, etc. of the Tang Dynasty. Song Zhiwen, Wen Tingyun, Liu Zongyuan, Bai Juyi, Sikong Tu, the great writer Yuan Haowen of the Jin Dynasty, the dramatists Bai Pu and Zheng Guangzu of the Yuan Dynasty, the litterateur Luo Guanzhong of the Ming Dynasty, the famous prime minister Chen Tingjing of the Qing Dynasty, etc. There are so many classical legends and so many famous people, but they have not told their own stories well. Hedong is still not well-known. It seems that such a heavy cultural accumulation has become a burden and a burden. I read an article online two days ago, titled "Look at Shaanxi in three thousand years, Henan in five thousand years, and Gansu in eight thousand years." So on which historical axis should Shanxi be placed?

In fact, it doesn’t matter where it is placed. The key is to have its own story and its own axis, so that such a wonderful history and culture can be rejuvenated!