Note: So as not to over-load these image-galleries, I’ve put photos from other shrines at the same monastery on a separate page, accessed here.
Structure Type: Buddhist Monastery 寺廟.
Location: The Monastery of Redoubled Peace, Yu County, Hebei Province 河北蔚縣重泰寺. Note that I have placed another set of murals from the same complex in a different gallery, here. The three buildings here are all located along the central axis of the monastery complex. The stage faces the whole complex to the south. The shrine to Avalokiteśvara is located in front of the Water-and-Land Hall 水陸殿 in the center of the monastery. The Tower of the Three Teachings 三教樓 is at the northern end of the monastery complex, forming part of its back wall.
Period: The murals in the shrine to Avalokiteśvara seem 18th or possibly early 19th century to me. The murals in the opera stage and in the Tower of the Three Teachings should be from the early 20th century.
Artist: Unknown.
Mural Contents: The shrine to Avalokiteśvara 觀音廟 is extremely small and narrow and mostly filled with a large statue of the deity; I was able to composite images of the two side walls, but the results are not perfect. The images show scenes from the Universal Gate Sūtra 普門品經, in which Avalokiteśvara-Guanyin fulfills her vow to save those who call her name from a long list of evils. These murals are quite fine, as are the triangular panels in the rafters.
The Tower of the Three Teachings 三教樓 is located at the north of the monastery complex. There’s a stele recounting the construction of the staircase leading to the top in 1849, but no clear account of when this tower was built. I’ve seen references in several stele accounts from elsewhere of the construction, in the 16th century, of defensive structures called “monastery platforms” 寺台 or “monastery towers” 寺樓. My theory is that this unusual structure in the Monastery of Redoubled Peace represents one such tower, but I can’t prove this. In any case, the temple at the top now contains a shrine to the founders of the “Three Teachings”, Laozi (Daoism), Śākyamuni (Buddhism), and Confucius. These paintings are ugly as sin, but since votive images of both Laozi and especially Confucius are quite rare, I’ve put them up here.
The opera stage across from the monastery is of unknown date; it already existed by the time of the 1849 stele, at which point a room for the actors 戲房 was constructed, in order that that visiting troupes would not pollute monastery grounds by sleeping within the complex during temple fairs. The stage murals show folding screens with extremely faded architectural drawings; the back-stage walls have curious images of various decorative scrolls and fans.
Full Gallery
