Zhengding

Overview

Map

About

Zhengding, on the northern edge of Shijiazhuang, Hebei, on the north bank of the Hutuo River, was known in the past as Changshan and Zhending. From the Northern Dynasties to the Qing it was long the seat of a commandery or prefecture, and it is a National Famous Historical and Cultural City. Zhao Yun, the famous general of the Three Kingdoms, came from Zhending in Changshan. The old town is dense with monuments, including ten Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level.

Longxing Temple

Longxing Temple, popularly the Great Buddha Temple, was founded in the Sui. Early in the Song, the first Song emperor had a bronze statue of the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion cast and the temple enlarged; it is one of the earliest and most complete large Buddhist temples surviving in China. The thousand-armed Guanyin in the Pavilion of Great Compassion, over twenty metres tall, is one of the largest ancient bronze statues in China. The Mani Hall, built in the Northern Song, has a porch on each of its four sides, giving it a cross-shaped plan, and inside is a Ming painted statue of Guanyin seated facing backwards, relaxed and natural. The temple also has a Song revolving sutra cabinet and the Sui Longzang Temple stele, whose regular script, linking the Northern and Southern Dynasties to the Tang, makes it a famous piece in the history of calligraphy.

The four pagodas

Four old pagodas stand in the old town, each different: the Xumi Pagoda of Kaiyuan Temple is a square Tang brick pagoda; the Lingxiao Pagoda of Tianning Temple is brick below and timber above, and is called the Wooden Pagoda; the upper part of the Flower Pagoda of Guanghui Temple is covered with Buddhas, lions and elephants so that the whole looks like a bunch of flowers — a rare type of which this is the classic example; and the Chengling Pagoda stands in Linji Temple, the ancestral temple of the Linji school of Chan Buddhism. The bell tower of Kaiyuan Temple keeps a Tang timber frame; very few Tang towers survive. The temple also has a huge stone tortoise that once carried a stele.

Confucian temples, steles and town wall

The Main Hall of the county Confucian Temple appears from its style to date from the Five Dynasties or early Song, the oldest surviving main hall of a Confucian temple; of the prefectural Confucian Temple only the Yuan gate remains. The Tang stele recording the deeds of Li Baochen (popularly the Wind-Moved Stele) is tall and imposing. Long stretches of the Ming town wall survive around the old town, and the South Gate area has been restored.

Travel tips

Getting there: Zhengding is north of Shijiazhuang and has Shijiazhuang Zhengding International Airport; it is about half an hour by road from the city centre.

Sightseeing: The monuments are concentrated in the old town. Longxing Temple takes half a day; the four pagodas, Kaiyuan Temple and the Confucian Temple are close together and can be seen on foot or by bicycle in a day.

Stamps

In 2016 China Post issued 2016-16 “Longxing Temple, Zhengding”, two stamps: the Moni Hall and the Dabei Pavilion.

The Moni Hall
The Dabei Pavilion

Nearby

Straight-line distances. Search nearby