Asian Legend: A Fortress In The Bamboo

Fairy tales are not relegated to Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella in their stone fortresses. For centuries, legends have circulated in Asia about the various religious temples and statues that dot the landscape.

And one such legend is found deep within a bamboo forest.

The famous Buddhist Qiongzhu (Bamboo) Temple is located on the beautiful wooded Yu’an Mountain seven miles northwest of Kunmin. The temple is surrounded by a mysterious legend and a thick beautiful bamboo forest.

As the legend goes, during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), two brothers of royal lineage were hunting in the hills outside Kunming. They spotted a bizarre rhinoceros. With hopes of capturing it, they followed the rhinoceros deep into the woods of Yu’an Mountain where the magical animal suddenly disappeared. Just as they lost sight of the rhinoceros, the brothers saw a group of monks who were unlike any monks they had seen before. When the monks saw the brothers, they vanished in clouds leaving only their walking sticks planted in the ground. By the following day, these walking sticks had become an entire bamboo forest. The amazed brothers knew that they had met enlightened, supernatural beings and, in order to honor them, they built Qiongzhu Temple in the forest of bamboo.

However wondrous that story is, it’s not historically accurate. Accounts of the Qiongzhu Temple date back to the Song Dynasty. But it was during the Yuan Dynasty (around 1280) that a highly renowned monk reputed to have learned Buddhism from central China gave his teachings that brought great fame to the temple as a spiritual center. After a devastating fire, the Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty rebuilt the temple by adding five pavilions during the late 1880′s.

And while the temple is a beautiful structure, the most outstanding feature is the distinguished, finely crafted statues of 500 Luohans (‘enlightened ones’) sculpted by the brilliant artist Li Guangxiu. Regarded as ‘a pearl in the treasure house of oriental sculpture’, these statues stand throughout the pavilions and some within the bamboo forest itself. They are life-sized and impressively realistic as Li Guangxius and his apprentices spent many years studying people and how their personalities shown through their physical features.

After seven years of study and work, this immense undertaking was completed. Each of these statues represents another aspect of human life with such accuracy and skill, and look like real people who are just frozen in a moment in time.

These Luohans, which are not ornately decorated, depict seemingly common people in the midst of ordinary lives and feelings. The appearances of the old and the young, the sick and the healthy, the skilled and the unskilled, the strong and the emaciated, the beautiful and the ugly, the wealthy and the poor, with expressions of joy, anger, laughter, grief, amusement, satisfaction, hunger, delight, sadness, compassion, serenity, curiosity, surprise, boredom, and contemplation are extremely vivid. Each Luohan is unique and expresses its own singular inner character. It is said that if you pick a Louhan and count them to the right when you reach your age, you will find the Louhan that depicts your inner character. Each of the 500 Louhans is a beautiful work of art and collectively they are awe-inspiring.

Inside the temple are numerous inscriptions and couplets on columns and tablets. These inscriptions date back to the 1200′s and give us glimpses into the life and culture of those times. Other notable features of the Qiongzhu Temple include: the statues of Four Guardian Kings in the entrance hall; the three large statues of Buddha in the main temple building and two majestic 450-year-old cypress trees that stand in the forecourt. Walking around the grounds and through the bamboo forest, the world and its problems fade away and the gentle beauty of life re-emerges.

Surrounded by the beautiful bamboo forest, the Qiongzhu Temple is a restorative and peaceful place to visit that offers natural, artistic and cultural insight for all visitors.

For more on bamboo wonders throughout the world, visit Green Earth New’s section on Bamboo Marvels.

Bamboo is so versatile, it is quickly climbing to the top of the charts as a favorite in the textile industry for it’s superb comfort. You might want to try cozy bamboo socks, bamboo shirts, bamboo apparel, bamboo underwear or a sexy bamboo dress!