Note: So as not to over-load these image-galleries, I’ve put photos from other shrines at the same monastery n a separate page, accessed here.
Structure Type: Buddhist Monastery 佛寺.
Location: Yu County, Hebei Province 河北省蔚縣. The Monastery of Redoubled Peace is a large multi-hall monastic complex set on an isolated bluff north of the villages Yan Family Fort 閻家寨 and Gao and Li Family Monastery 高利寺. Originally access to the monastery was protected by a mud wall that stretched between these two villages and another wall that cut off the route along the bluffs from the north.
Period: Undated. The style is clearly mid-Qing. A number of steles are scattered around the complex, mostly with their useful sides face-down. One of these records donors for a major restoration project in 1774; my sense of the style is that if this isn’t the date, it’s not far off. This stele is reproduce at 鄧慶平. 蔚縣碑銘紀錄. 桂林: 廣西師範大學出版社, 2009, pp.542-3.
Artist: Unknown.
Mural Contents: The murals show the Buddhist Feast of Water and Land, in which all the gods and demons of the cosmos are called down to the altar to partake of offerings and be converted. The rear walls show the Ten Vidyārājas 十明王, wrathful deities of the Water and Land maṇḍala. Several other shrine-rooms with old murals exist within this complex, but I haven’t had time to put up photos yet.
Other Notes: The room is dark and the position of the statues and the large central altar make it impossible to get full-wall photographs of anything but the vidyārājas.
Full Gallery
