Not only people of the Han nationality were thronged to be Buddhist adherents in the Southern Capital but also the Khitan people and even the emperor paid a great respect to the Buddhist belief. The National Records of the Khitan Empire provided evidence for the historical fact that the number of the monks residing in the temples in the Southern Capital topped in the north and created a Buddha-worshipping pinnacle in the history of Beijing.
The prosperity of Buddhism in the city of the Southern Capital conduced the reality that temples and stupas stood in great numbers. According to the recordation in the literary work Notes about Songmo (¡¶ËÉÄ®¼ÇÎÅ¡·) by Honghao of the Song Dynasty, there were 36 big monasteries in the city of the Southern Capital. The famous monasteries in the city were Minzhong Temple (Fayuan Temple now), Tianwang Temple (Tianjing Temple now), Zhulin Temple, Haotian Temple, Guiyi Temple and Xianlu Temple, etc. Some of them, such as Minzhong Temple and Tianwang Temple, have survived hundreds of years¡¯ chaos and turmoil caused by wars. There were also famous temples in the outskirts of the Southern Capital, with Qingshui Monastery at Taishan (Temple of Great Awakening now) and Huiju Temple (Temple of the Ordination Altar now) as instance. |
