pagoda forest with a land area of nearly 20, 000 square meters is located on the slop over 280 meters southwest to shaolin temple permanent residence compound and near the shaoxi river in the south. in the forest, there are numerous pagodas in different shapes and height just like high trees to form a forest and thus it is called “pagoda forest”. as per legend, in the qing dynasty, when travelling the zhong yue (songshan mountains), emperor qianlong sent 500 of his imperial troops to count the pagodas, thousand and half of a day was spent, but they failed to give an exact figure. emperor qianlong said in a sigh with emotion: “it is really a pagoda forest”.
at the edge of lixue pavilion, there are two ancient cedars, as the miracle landscape of the courtyard. on the east side of the paved path leading to lixue pavilion, erected is a stone tablet written with “lixue pavilion”. the back of the tablet was carved with the inscription of record of building buddha niche in the tenth year of ming jiajing.
up north from the sutra-keeping pavilions, on the high terrace are the arch and east and west side doors over the gateway. as per stele record in the temple, the arch was built before the seventh year of qing qianlong (1752). the arch was destroyed in 1928. the current three arches were rebuilt in the 1980s.
the sutra-keeping hall, also known buddhism chapel, is located on the axel line behind mahaviro hall, being a place for the eminent monk to disseminate buddhism and store the classic buddhist scriptures. currently, ti reserves thousands of classics such as all china, dragon scripture, dazheng scripture, korean scripture and others. as per stele record, it was built during the period of the yuan dynasty (1341-1368).
mahaviro hall was also in the ancient times called as three-century buddha hall” “glazed hall”, but commonly called as grand hall, main hall and treasure hall. it is situated in the center of the temple and is the center for all the buddhist services of the temple.
the hall was originally shaolin temple’ s gateway, built in the yuan dynasty and renovated many times in the dynasties of ming and qing. when shaolin temple was renovated in the 13th year of qing yongzheng (1735), before this hall was built another gateway, while the original gate was named as devajara hall.
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