When it comes to dangkong temple, we should think of Hengshan dangkong temple in Datong, Shanxi Province. In fact, there is not only such a hanging temple in China, but this one in Hengshan is indeed the most famous. You don't have to climb Mount Hengshan, but you have to see the temple. What is the difference between this temple? Why does it last for thousands of years?
Xuankong Temple, located in Hunyuan County, Datong, Shanxi Province, is the only unique temple in China that combines Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. It was built in the late Northern Wei Dynasty, about 1500 years ago. According to the legend of the local elders, the origin of this temple is very strange. It is a hanging temple, half a day high, with three horsetails hanging in the air. Until now, people have not been able to understand why ancient people built such a temple and chose to live in such a special environment.
Some people say that: in those days, Taoism had a requirement that we should not hear the sound of chickens singing and dogs barking, so we built a hanging temple on the hillside.
Dangkong temple is not far from Datong. It is only about 70 kilometers away. There are special bus tour routes and many special car rental tours. Built on a cliff 60 meters from the ground, the temple transcends the gravity of the earth and looks like floating in the air. Xu Xiake, a great traveler in the Ming Dynasty, calls it "the Grand View of the world". It has been rated as one of the most dangerous buildings in the world by time.
As we all know, the geological condition of Shanxi Province is not stable. Over 1500 years, 41 halls of Xuankong Temple have experienced countless earthquakes, landslides and rainstorms. In the past 50 years, Hunyuan County, where Xuankong Temple is located, has experienced two earthquakes of magnitude 6 or above, and the most serious one has destroyed nearly one third of the houses in the county. But the temple is still in the same style.
In addition, the whole Xuankong Temple is located in a small basin in the deep mountains. There is a protruding part of the cliff above that can shelter the temple from the wind and rain. Even if there is a flood visit below, it will not be flooded to the location of the Xuankong Temple. At the same time, the mountain here also well blocks part of the sun for the Xuankong Temple, which is also an important factor that it can spread to the present.
There are more than 80 Buddha statues in the hanging temple. The rock under the temple is engraved with the word "spectacular". This was written by Li Bai himself in those days. Many literati and calligraphers would like to come here to have a look. Standing on the plank road and looking down, they worry and enjoy it. It's really a different taste!
Tourists come here to wonder: what is the support of such a large-scale building on the cliff? At first, it was thought that the temple was supported by 30 red trees, which connected to the trestle road of the pavilion and down to the rock. But soon researchers found that among these 30 trees, there were movable ones. Moreover, the thinnest one was only about 10 cm, which was not enough to support nearly 100 tons of buildings.
So what is the answer? It wasn't until the late 1990s that experts found that the wooden beams under the wooden plank road and pavilion, each with a diameter of 50 cm, could not be pulled out at all, just as they grew out of the cliff. It was these trees and beams that together formed a powerful support system, supporting the miracle of the Chinese people.