In December 2010, the world-renowned magazine Time magazine collected the world's most dangerous and seemingly "precarious" buildings, and the Hanging Temple in Shanxi was among them.

In the world's top ten most dangerous buildings published by Time magazine, the Hanging Temple and Italy's Leaning Tower of Pisa and other internationally renowned buildings appear together, instantly, causing a lot of attention at home and abroad.

Hanging Temple, as its name suggests, is a temple built halfway up a mountain, and from a distance it looks like it is hanging on a cliff face.

However, in addition to the peculiar architectural features of the Hanging Temple, the staff discovered during the maintenance of the Hanging Temple that there were expansion screws in the Hanging Temple.

You know that in those days, metal tools simply have not yet appeared, how on earth this is the case? And what is the secret of the Hanging Temple? Today the author will take you to understand.

01 The temple hanging in the air

The Hanging Temple, located at the foot of Mount Heng in the southeastern suburb of Hunyuan County, Datong City, Shanxi Province, China, is a wonder of the world, and those who have been to the site know it well.

In the early years, the famous poet Li Bai also came to visit this place, and after seeing the real appearance of the Hanging Temple, he was so shocked by the strange scenery of the Temple that he gladly wrote down the word "spectacular" on the rock wall.

After he stopped writing, Li Bai felt that these two words were not enough to express his excitement at the moment, so he added a little more to the spectacular word "magnificent".

Today, Li Bai's inscriptions are also preserved intact at the foot of the temple, which adds to the charm of the Hanging Temple.

What is so special about the Hanging Temple? What is it that makes Li Bai, who has seen so much and traveled so much, praise it so much?

Hanging Temple is also called "Xuankong Pavilion", the reason for this name, perhaps and Hanging Temple is located in the geographical location has a close relationship.

Looking from the foot of the mountain, the Hanging Temple is like hanging on a cliff face, standing on a cliff face more than sixty meters above the ground.

Even in the present time, there is a great difficulty in choosing the site for such a building, let alone in the time when all kinds of apparatus and conditions were relatively backward.

I have to say, through the continuous understanding of the people before us, we can not help but be impressed by the wisdom of the ancients, condensing the crystallization of their wisdom time and time again shocked us.

Usually, in order to the continuation of the incense, the construction of the temple will generally choose a more convenient place of transportation, even if the winding path, but not to build in such a remote cliff.

Above the entire pavilion of the Hanging Temple is a huge rock, below it is a turbulent river, and the height of the Hanging Temple is as high as a thirty-story building.

Looking down from the Hanging Temple will give you a feeling of vertigo, and if you are not careful, you might be able to fall into the river and be pulverized.

As a tourist is still so dangerous, let alone for the workers who built it at that time, from cutting the wall to transporting timber, you can imagine how much hardship and danger they went through.

However, why exactly to ask for trouble, the hanging temple built in mid-air on the cliff, it is from the history of the construction of the hanging temple.

02 Legend of ghosts and gods, construction background

Hanging Temple was built in the late Northern Wei Dynasty, more than 1,500 years from now, for the construction of the Hanging Temple, in many historical sources are not mentioned too much.

When archaeologists consulted local materials, they learned that there were some legends in the vicinity of Cuipingfeng Mountain in the early years, and based on this, the general background of the construction of the Hanging Temple was inferred.

According to legend, during the Northern Wei Dynasty, every rainy season, it would be cloudy and rainy near Cuiping Mountain, which had a great impact on the local residents.

Because it is located in the mountains, the rain constantly also led to the outbreak of floods, not only directly cut off the local people and the outside world communication.

In the flooding, so that the local residents planted crops are all destroyed, over time, this situation will make the local people very headache, but ultimately failed to come up with a solution.

Later, I do not know when, in the local began to circulate some cattle ghosts and snake gods of the legend, some people believe that the local annual flooding, it is likely that the ghosts and gods behind the trouble.

As the saying goes, people's words can be feared, with a rumor, a hundred, gradually, this legend without the slightest theoretical basis has become a recognized fact.

So, the villagers will raise money to invite a Taoist priest with a deeper practice to exorcise the evil, the Taoist priest said after viewing the local situation, "To exorcise the evil, here to build a temple."

But Cuiping Mountain's mountainous terrain is dangerous, which has the conditions for building a temple, is at a loss, the Taoist master for the crowd to point out the mystery.

The Taoist priest said that there was a "spiritual place" suitable for building a temple on a cliff on the Cuiping Peak, and according to the Taoist priest's instructions, his disciples began to make arrangements for the construction of the temple.

Soon after, the elderly Taoist chief died, on his deathbed, the Taoist chief was also always mindful of the construction of the temple, he instructed: "Must be built to extend the effect of the xiao guest, under the arrogant float."

Due to the high difficulty factor of temple construction, the construction of the Hanging Temple was finally completed fifty years after the death of the Taoist Master.

03 Significant, one of the best in the world

The entire temple takes the layout of "one courtyard and two buildings", with an overall length of thirty-two meters and a large number of pavilions and halls, forty in total.

And each pavilion and temple are connected with wooden stacks, closely connected around, plus with the support of the rock, so that the upper and lower beams form a more special frame structure.

This high-altitude wooden cliff building is also the earliest surviving and most complete ancient building in China, which has greatly increased the earthquake resistance of the temple.

Not only that, according to the survey, the experts found that all the Buddha statues in the Hanging Temple are made by using the stripped yarn Buddha statues, which can greatly reduce the weight of the Buddha statues.

Such an advanced construction method was really rare at that time, so you can also see that the craftsmen spent a lot of effort in order to build the Hanging Temple.

And as descendants, we feel even more deeply when we climb the Hanging Temple. In addition to the complete layout of the exquisite temple built between the cliffs, there are two parts of the temple hanging above the cliff wall.

The wooden walkway connecting the two temples seems to float directly in the air, and when visitors stand on top of this wooden walkway, in which they look down, they will unconsciously have their hearts racing.

At the same time, the bravery and fearlessness of contemporary craftsmen can be felt more intimately and admirably.

In addition, the Hanging Temple is the only ancient building in China that truly unites the three religions of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, and was listed as a national key cultural relics protection unit by the State Council as early as 1982.

It is also called the "first scenic spot" among the 18 scenic spots in Hengshan, and the Hanging Temple can be called one of the best buildings in the world, both in terms of the thrill of the site and the ingenuity of the structure.

Even now, the peculiar ancient building that combines labor, aesthetics, religion and so on into one still attracts many scholars from home and abroad to explore.

An Italian scholar once said that the Hanging Temple well represents the great achievements of the Chinese nation and is the embodiment of the great crystallization of wisdom of the Chinese sons and daughters.

Not only that, in the south building of the Hanging Temple, there are three clay statues, which are also the largest in size in the Hanging Temple. In the middle of the north building is the Buddha statue of Sakyamuni.

On its left is Confucius, on its right is Laozi, these Buddha statues gathered together, does not it just embody the spirit of tolerance of the sea!

For an ancient building of such cultural importance, it is natural for China to send experts to regularly maintain and reconstruct it to ensure that the Hanging Temple can permanently stand on the cliff.

Because the whole of the Hanging Temple uses the mortise and tenon structure of wooden room beams, although under the careful design, it makes the load-bearing capacity of each piece of wood is enhanced.

But after all, the Hanging Temple has lasted for a thousand years, and under the corrosion of wind and rain, it is difficult to ensure that the wooden structure has not loosened, so, in order to better continue the survival life of the temple, experts decided to replace the cross-file of the corridor.

However, when taking out these cross files, experts discovered the "black technology" hidden in the hanging temple.

04 Surprise "black technology"

Located in the west corridor of the transverse gear, the most serious degree of wear, so the experts will first start from this place, ready to take out one of the transverse gear, and then replaced with a new system transverse gear.

However, the workers exhausted all means, but never could take the inside of the transverse gear, according to reason, this is not supposed to.

Even several workers together, have not been able to move the cross-file a point, if one of the cross-file can not be removed, then with the passage of time, once the cross-file is corroded, the entire temple will be in jeopardy.

The experts could not stand by and watch the great ancient building being swallowed up little by little, so after some deliberation, the experts decided to saw off the transom.

However, even when the workers took the tool saw, they were not able to easily cut the cross-file, and even to cut a cross-file, a whole three saw blades were consumed.

After an hour of work, the crosspiece was finally sawed, but this is only the exposed crosspiece, the most difficult factor is also in the stone of the small section.

The end of the horizontal wood inlaid in the stone is not as smooth as the other parts of the horizontal wood, the shape is also very special, when the construction of the time, the craftsmen should have made special modifications.

In the horizontal wood with a lot of seemingly axe cut out of the barbed denticles, not only that, in the cracks there are several wedges.

After all the hard work, after the experts finally took out the wedges, they were surprised to find that these wedges were not ordinary wedges, and their structure was very similar to the expansion screws we have today.

Those who are familiar with expansion screws know that they are used by many master workers today to fix air conditioners and water heaters, because expansion screws have a certain wedge-shaped slope.

It is this slope that allows the expansion screw to expand to strengthen the fixing effect, and the expansion screw is used in the cross timber is the same principle.

Before inserting the expansion screws into the cavern, the crosspiece needs to be propped up with a wedge, and then you can make those barbs on the surface of the crosspiece fit into the various grooves of the rock crest.

The deeper the wedge is placed, the tighter the horizontal wood is stuck to the rock, which makes the outside wood correspondingly strong.

It is also because of this performance of the expansion screws, making the workers in taking the expansion screws, a lot of effort.

Such clever means, in that era, is not a veritable black technology.

At that time, naturally, the term expansion screw did not appear, and at that time metal tools had not been invented, and the wedges found by experts were made of wood.

Despite this, the principle of its use is exactly the same as that of expansion screws, with similarities and differences.

Not only that, even if the outside of the horizontal wood suffered damage. Under the protection of expansion screws, the inside part of the rock can still be intact.

Needless to say, as the exploration of the Hanging Temple continues, people's admiration for their ancestors grows stronger.

Although it stands on a cliff, the Hanging Temple is not a building that can only be seen from afar, the ancient craftsmen spent even more effort to build it.

It was only through the efforts of countless people that such a peculiar hanging temple was finally able to withstand the baptism of time for thousands of years and emerge intact in our eyes.

Such a convergence of the sweat and energy of our forefathers, the results of the crystallization of the wisdom of our ancestors, is naturally the pride of the children of China, is also the treasure of our country.

And as a member of the Chinese children, without the support of expertise, although we are not able to go to the site to actually do something.

Yet we can do what we can to promote it and protect it from destruction.

References

China.com The Hanging Temple in Shanxi

China.com The Hanging Wonder: Located at the foot of Mount Heng, on the cliff of West Rock within the Golden Dragon Gorge, five kilometers south of the Hanging City of Hunyuan

Phoenix.com The Hanging Temple in Hengshan, Shanxi Province: A building hanging in the sky

Do you believe that a screw can be left in place for a thousand years without breaking? And it is still the key to support a temple standing on the cliff face.

You can't believe it if you don't believe it.

Our ancient ancestors built numerous legendary and representative buildings, such as the famous Terracotta Warriors and Horses, a terracotta warriors and horses in the pit of the sword was pressed for thousands of years to take out can still be used as usual.

This is the wisdom of our Chinese people, even in modern times, can be called a miracle.

And not just the Terracotta Warriors, the designers of the Hanging Temple in Shanxi used "special organs" to keep the temple "alive" for thousands of years.

01 Magical Hanging Temple

In 2010, the Hanging Temple in Datong, Shanxi Province, China was listed in Time Magazine's list of the world's top ten buildings in danger, and undoubtedly, the Hanging Temple is also a 5A-level scenic spot in China.

Why is a temple "in jeopardy"?

In Datong, Shanxi Province, the Hanging Temple has been standing for thousands of years. This temple can be described as the essence of the whole body, because it is built on top of a cliff more than sixty meters high, integrating Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism into one temple that does not distinguish between you and me.

"The beams are old wood, you have to take them out for new wood temples to be okay,"

This day, several experts in the hanging temple here to check the wall body, is planning to replace the new wood, repair some, so a few people manipulate tools intended to the old horizontal wood sawing, but did not expect a full sawing for more than an hour, but also used three saw blades.

After sawing, the experts are planning to work together to draw out the wood but how can not draw, and stop the wood and the beam next to the beam is also very unique shape, we began to take the axe again, but found that there are several wedges inside the wood after cutting.

"This wedge is not an ordinary wedge, and from the texture of the crack we found that this structure is the expansion screw often used now!"

Experts say that this expansion screw is our modern home appliance repair workers used to fix the common parts of air conditioners and water heaters, using the principle of wedge-shaped slope to promote the expansion of friction, thereby increasing the strength of the fixed.

When inserted into the cavern cross timber, use the wedge to open the cross timber, so that the chamfered teeth of the cross timber and rock groove alignment, the deeper the wedge, the tighter the card, so that the outside of the wood is also hard, the inside of the solidity is not affected, in our modern language this is the ancient "black technology" ah!

Now with the expansion screws are metal, but also in our metal tools after the invention of the expansion screw this fixed good hand, but the hanging temple found in this is wood, but with the expansion screw principle exactly the same, can see that the ancient people know that time to use this principle to build temples, this is great wisdom ah!

Therefore, in this case even if the outside is rotten, it will not have any effect on the cavern articulation, thus ensuring the sturdiness between the beams.

Hanging temple of clay Buddha stone statue a total of copper, iron, stone, clay four, a total of more than eighty, the entire temple framework are wooden, and then by virtue of the beam inserted in the cliff cut out of the hole and as a base, the entire temple pavilion are connected to the stack, backed by the wall, the temple is not too big, but can be described as ingenious.

Such a wonderful sight, even when Li Bai passed by the Hanging Temple, he inscribed the word "spectacular" for it.

So an expansion screw so that the hanging temple after a thousand years of wind and rain are unscathed, what is the secret behind it?

The Hanging Temple, also called "Xuankong Pavilion", was built in the Northern Wei Dynasty, and because it was built on top of an abyss, just like hanging on a cliff, the Hanging Temple was called the "First Scenic Spot" among the 18 scenic spots of Mount Heng, and was also selected as one of the ten most precarious buildings in the world.

During the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Cui Ping Mountain near the Hanging Temple would flood in the rainy season, destroying traffic and roads, and even crops were flooded, so the residents living nearby suffered and some families would be killed or injured.

Because this situation continued for many years, so the people suspected that the "demons in the haunting", in the long run, the people of this area are convinced of the ghosts and evil, we want to build a temple to drive away the evil.

However, the terrain near Cuiping Mountain, there is no flat land suitable for building temples, the villagers then invited a Taoist priest, the Taoist priest told them that the cliffs near Cuiping Mountain is very suitable for building temples, the temple built out here is a holy place to drive away evil spirits, full of "aura".

Later, the Taoist master had his disciples build the temple on this cliff, and told them that the temple should be "on the Yanxiao guest, under the arrogant floating," that is, straight into the sky, the meaning of the magnificent.

Later, the disciples studied hard for a long time in order to follow the master's legacy, and legend has it that the Hanging Temple was built only fifty years after the death of this Taoist master.

No one knows how such a daunting task was accomplished by these Taoist priests, and building a temple on a cliff is a big news even today.

It was not until the 1990s when our country further renovated this temple that we discovered that the Buddha statues in the Hanging Temple were not as thick and heavy as those we have in temples today.

Although standing on top of the cliff, but the hanging temple should have a lot of things, more than the temple on the flat ground.

The total length of the Hanging Temple is thirty-two meters, including the whole forty pavilions and halls, the Palace of Pure Yang, the Hall of Three Officials, the Hall of Three Teachings, etc. Its foundation uses half inserted flying beams, supplemented with boulders below to support it.

The entire complex of buildings in the temple stands firmly on the cliff, staggered together, although the distribution of each hall is very symmetrical, but in fact there are changes, giving a very open and wild feeling.

The most important thing is that the Buddha statue is designed to be stripped of its yarn, which completely reduces the weight-bearing nature of the statue, a technique that could be considered extremely rare in the Northern Wei Dynasty more than a thousand years ago, so our ancestors must have expended efforts that were unimaginable to ordinary people.

Expansion screws inside the horizontal wood, is the use of the connection of the mortise and tenon structure of the wood embedded in each other fixed, this technique is not only beautiful and strong, from a distance, the entire hanging temple seems to be only a dozen large bowl thick wood support, the highest from the ground about fifty meters, closely linked to them to increase the earthquake resistance of the temple.

In the inner side of the temple, the distribution of each room are also delicate, they zigzag back and forth between the seemingly close contact, but a closer look and unrelated, the virtual reality of each other is not difficult to detect the small and exquisite qualities, and the level of change, you seem to be a small temple in front of you but in fact, the small see large, staggered depend on each other.

02 Hanging Temple is an art treasure

Nino, an archaeologist from Venice, Italy, said: The Hanging Temple and all that it symbolizes behind it embody the great achievements of the Chinese people and is an outstanding expression of the wisdom of the Chinese people, and it is well worth a trip to China just to see this temple.

Yes, the Hanging Temple is the pride of the Chinese people.

Its eaves alone are single eaves, heavy eaves, triple eaves three, the structure is also divided into lifting beam, flat roof, arch, in addition to even the roof is divided into the ridge, hanging ridge, bump ridge and poor ridge, just the good intention, our ancestors behind the ingenuity to pay, it is enough to make people move to tears.

Although these are inseparable from the ingenious craftsmanship and professional technology, such as the "thousand-year expansion screws" we found, the unique style of the Hanging Temple, which has a building in the cave and a cave in the building, is also one of the best in the world.

There are buildings and halls and wall caves, which is a typical Chinese ancient garden architecture process, whether from the big picture or details, it can be said that we Hanging Temple has never served anyone!

Hanging Temple is by no means a surface on the cliff above the famous "vase" temple, but it seems impossible, the actual miracle of all the organs.

Hanging Temple has a total of forty pavilions and halls, some of which are overhead, some of which are intertwined, and there are countless stacks connected at the beginning and end.

It is worth mentioning that the two-meter-high clay statue of the three officials in the South Building is the largest clay statue of the Hanging Temple, and the highest point of the South Building is the Hall of Thunderbolt of Sakyamuni.

In the very center of the north building is the Buddha statue of Shakyamuni, with Confucius on the left and Laozi on the right. This is the lofty realm of the Hanging Temple that embodies the commonwealth of the Chinese nation.

From a distance, the Hanging Temple is a relief art, and up close, each temple has the momentum of leaping in the air, which makes people applaud, whether from the craft or aesthetics, the Hanging Temple is the object of study and admiration of countless architectural scholars.

But then again, although the Hanging Temple is the pride of China, but the human heart is always unable to withstand the test, the more the treasures left by the old ancestors, the more people think about the discovery into the wealth.

As early as 1957, the Hanging Temple was listed as a key protected cultural relic in Shanxi Province, and in the 21st century, the state made great efforts in the environmental management project near the Hanging Temple, removing a total of 200,000 cubic meters of silted riverbed.

However, in 2013, we were still heartbroken to find traces of coal being secretly dug behind Cuiping Mountain, where the Hanging Temple is located, and this act caused a great deal of damage to the entire Hanging Temple environment.

After the discovery, although the government carried out timely restoration, many important parts of the original mountain of Cuiping could not be restored, and we could only try to "treat it well" on top of its broken foundation.

China has had the most temples since ancient times, and as these architectural relics for thousands of years, they are also the most vulnerable to disasters, especially fire.

Therefore, in April 2019, DJI drones also provided digital 3D scanning technology services for the Hanging Temple so that it can be repaired in time when it is needed.

"Hanging temple, half a day high, three horsetails hanging in the air." Everyone in Datong knows this saying, and it is the most intuitive way for people in Shanxi to describe the Hanging Temple, praising the wonderful hands of the ancients on the one hand, and sighing at their clever and wise craftsmanship on the other.

It is said that everyone who has been to the Hanging Temple has the same feeling, that is, when they are in the Hanging Temple will feel like a person who has become an immortal, the kind of living between heaven and earth sacred, the kind of overlooking the three worlds, insight into the clarity of all things, can make people instantly have a "originally nothing, where to cause dust" state of mind.

Thoughts, distractions, desires, as long as you climb the Hanging Temple will instantly disappear, this is the ancestors taught us the ability to purify the soul, but also as Chinese children can do to clear the mind and forget the capital of favor and disgrace.

The word "hanging" is the same as "xuan", so the subtlety and microcosm of the word "xuan" is that Hanging Temple stands on top of the world and can make those who see it understand the philosophy and think about the wonderful meaning of life.

Whether it is the "swollen screws" that have been alive for a thousand years, or the staggered internal pattern of the halls that baffle people, the Hanging Temple is a treasure of the Chinese nation and a world cultural heritage for all mankind, from its location, architecture to its ideology, every part of it.

As descendants of Yanhuang, all we can do is to try our best to protect it and promote it, so that we can live up to the wisdom of our ancestors.

A Chinese architect once said, "China's Hanging Temple has achieved perfection, it combines Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism into one also combines mechanics and aesthetics, this kind of peculiar art is rare in the world."

Yes, may we do our best to carry forward the spirit of the Chinese people and may this ancient temple that has stood for a thousand years stay with us forever.

Reference source

Baidu Encyclopedia --- Shanxi Hanging Temple

Xinmin Evening News "The World's Best Hanging Temple

Culture Network "Shanxi Hanging Temple

Phoenix.com "Datong Hanging Temple, the Miracle of Hanging Cliffs for a Thousand Years