Open Collections

Blue Dragon Monastery (Qinglong si 青龍寺)

From the Ground Up: Buddhism & East Asian Religions (FROGBEAR Project)

Blue Dragon Monastery (Qinglong si 青龍寺) is located on a hilltop overlooking the Sanggan River 桑乾河, known as “Tiger-Head Ridge” (Hutou ling 虎頭嶺; this is also the name of the adjacent village). According to the temple-keeper interviewed in 2018, the spurs of the ridge that lead down to the river are four limbs and phallus of the geomantic tiger, while the temple pins down the tiger’s head. All that remains of the monastery today is a single temple hall; ruined walls indicate that other buildings once stood around it. Three steles remain outside the complex, all from the 1820s; of these two are simply lists of donors. The third stele (from 1826) claims that the temple was originally founded in 1589, but later fell into ruin. In 1822 a charismatic preacher named Chan Master Benli 本利禪師 gave teachings and opened an ordination-platform there (jiao li jietan 教立戒壇). When Benli taught the Śūraṅgama Sūtra (Lengyan jing 楞嚴經) a rain of flowers fell from the sky, and when he taught Kṣitigarbha (Dizang 地藏) texts “a numinous realm was revealed in the clouds, and the dharma-thunder resounded” (於雲間顯開靈境法雷響). At this the assembled masses, including several officials from the nearby county towns, donated funds to have the monastery repaired. The murals inside are 19th-century in style, and presumably date from this narrative event; their unique contents may be the product of Chan Master Benli’s personal religious vision. The temple hall originally had a standard set of three Buddhas installed; the statues now occupying these spaces are recent. The panel behind the central statue has an image of two trees, while the two panels to either side show the deity’s assistants, although the identity of these figures is not clear. The east and west side-walls show a “heavenly court” scene (chaoyuan tu 朝元圖), with an array of deities facing inward towards the statue. At least some of these figures appear to be the Four Great Kings (Sida Tianwang 四大天王) and possibly the Dragon Kings (Longwang 龍王); several female figures have iconographies similar to those of Cundī (Zhunti 準提) or the Dipper-Mother (Doumu 斗母). Both side-walls have a separate inner panel on the northern side, which borders the altar. The western panel shows a world-mountain as an inverted cone of many tiers. Although this image is not found elsewhere in Chinese temple murals, it is very similar to images of Mount Sumeru (Xumi shan 須彌山) commonly painted on the outer walls of Tibetan- and Mongolian-Buddhist monasteries, as well as in scroll paintings. The eastern panel, directly across from this, shows a Daoist “inner alchemy chart” (neilian tu 內煉圖). The captions here are highly effaced and contain many variant forms of characters; transcription below is highly tentative and may contain misreadings. The numbers refer to the annotated image. (1) [several characters illegible] …不把一身仔細觀 / [illegible] (2) 智脉 (3) 十字街頭 (4) 山頭月台榮?苗斬 (5) 泥?☐宮 (6) 鬱羅蕭堂 (7) 崑崙山頂 (8) 五百年前乙?比丘而合下界赴 / 只因?來了借線事?地?洒霜?豪增 / ☐ (9) 白頭老子 (10) 泉洛絳宮 (11) 乙卯?三[⺭+大]手東氏?書 (12) 阿漏?池 (13) [blank] (14) 根扳?入 (15) [blank] (16) [blank] (17) [blank] (18) 蜃樓 (19) [blank] (20) 腎?神玄冥字守育? (21) 心神丹元字守靈 (22) 乾道☐男 (23) ☐☐☐ (24) ☐☐☐☐ (25) 嬰兒 (26) 弍腎?府 (27) [blank] (28) ☐☐☐山川 (29) 水火交煉池 (30) [blank] (31) ☐孤?☐.

Hebei Sheng (China); Yangyuan Xian (China); 40.165655; 114.487532

chi

North China Mural Survey

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0435865

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