Shuxiang Temple: The Figures in a Side Hall

Shuxiang Temple stands in the south-western part of Taihuai, just south-west of Tayuan Temple, and it is a smaller house than its neighbours: 6,400 square metres, more than fifty halls and palaces, one courtyard following another up a slope. Its history is longer than its size suggests. It dates from the early Eastern Jin, was rebuilt under the Tang, again in 1325 under the Yuan and again in 1496 under the Ming. It is a provincial cultural protection unit and a national key Buddhist temple in the Han Chinese area. The name comes from its dedication to Manjushri, Wenshu in Chinese, the bodhisattva of wisdom who belongs to this mountain.

Inside the Manjushri Hall sits the figure the temple exists for: Manjushri in colour, riding a suanni, the offspring of a dragon that has the look of a lion. The statue stands 9.87 metres high, the tallest image of Manjushri on the mountain, so that from the floor the bodhisattva's face is far above the visitor while the beast below is at eye level, its head turned. On the walls, sculpted paintings carry the tale of five hundred arhats crossing a river, a subject that lets a maker fill a wall with water, bodies and boats. Figures made that way stand out from the plaster, and the wall keeps a depth a flat painting would lose.

The temple is built into the foot of the slope, so that the halls behind the main axis stand against rising ground and the roofs step up with it. That position explains the place as much as the statue does: a house for Manjushri set on the mountain he belongs to, near enough to the centre of Taihuai to be walked to, far enough to keep its own quiet. At the entrance a spring comes up, known as the Prajna Spring, which runs clear and does not freeze in winter; that is the other reason a temple could be planted here. Water, slope and a bodhisattva: the three together decide where the courtyard walls went.