Dule Temple

Dule Temple (独乐寺) stands in the district town of Jizhou. Its gate and its Guanyin Pavilion were rebuilt in the second year of the Tonghe reign of the Liao dynasty, in 984, and those two buildings are the oldest structures still standing on the site. The temple's beginnings are older and are not recorded anywhere: the origin of the foundation is placed at least as far back as the early Tang. An Lushan held a rally here in 755 as his rebellion against the Tang emperor began. In 1928 troops under the warlord Sun Dianying were quartered in the main hall. Liang Sicheng studied the temple in 1932, and the earthquake of July 1976 shifted the top of the great Guanyin about fifteen centimetres to the south-west.