Kanjing temple

Kanjing temple

Kanjing temple is one of the "special caves" in Longmen Grottoes. Located on the north side of Wanfo Valley in Dongshan of Longmen, it is a royal cave excavated from Empress Wu Zetian to Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty.

essential information

Kanjing temple is located on the north side of Wanfo Valley in Dongshan, Xiangshan in Luoyang. It is the largest cave in Dongshan. On the front of the cave is a brick and tile two-story building built in the Qing Dynasty, with the word "kanjing Temple" engraved on the forehead.

The cave is a square with a flat top, with a depth of 13.9 meters, a width of 11.2 meters and a height of 8.3 meters.

There is a lotus caisson carved on the top of the cave, surrounded by four graceful flying apsaras. Twenty nine Arhats, standing about 1.80 meters high, are embossed on the 1.2-meter-high platform on the East, South and North walls of the cave. They are all destroyed. It is said that they are the twenty-nine "ancestors" of the western land from mahagaya to Bodhidharma, which is consistent with the "twenty-nine generations of the western Kingdom" in the book of Li Hua FA Bao Ji. They should be the so-called "twenty-nine ancestors" in Buddhism. It is a masterpiece of the Luohan group in Longmen stone carving.

The cave was excavated in the period of Empress Wu Zetian. In addition, there are three round seated Buddhas of the Song Dynasty in the cave. Nine rows of small Thousand Buddhas are carved on the south wall. In addition to several rows of small Thousand Buddhas on the north wall, there are some lotus flowers to support Bodhisattvas.

Kanjing temple is the largest cave in Dongshan, Longmen. The plane design of the whole cave is basically square. The biggest difference with other caves of the same period is that there is no main statue on the main wall of the cave. Instead, an altar is built in the center of the cave floor, on which Buddha statues are placed for people to worship Buddha. According to textual research, the cave was excavated for Zen, and the shape of the cave is a Zen hall where Zen once meditated and worshiped Buddhism.

Protection and opening up

On March 10, 2016, Longmen Grottoes opened to the public a "special cave" - kanjing temple. Visitors can walk into the cave and have a close look at the world's 29 most complete stone sculptures of the Tang Dynasty. The so-called "special caves" refer to caves with extremely precious cultural relics and high artistic and research value. For the sake of cultural relics protection, this kind of caves are rarely open to the public.

Return of cultural relics

On April 19, 2001, the State Administration of cultural relics held a "handover ceremony for the Canadian government to return the statues of China's Longmen Grottoes" at the Palace Museum in Beijing. The National Museum of art of Canada handed over its collection of statues from Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang to the Chinese side. The next day, the statue arrived at Henan Museum safely and was sent back to Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang for permanent preservation after a short stay. The stone arhat statue returned by the Canadian government was originally in the Buddhist temple on the East Bank of the Yi River in Longmen, Luoyang. In the lower part of the north, East and south walls of the cave, there are 29 relief sculptures of arhat of the same height as human beings, which should have been excavated in the period of Empress Wu Zetian. The arhat statue returned is the first from west to East on the south wall of kanjing temple, and it is the first of Sakyamuni's ten disciples. It was chiseled away and lost overseas in the late 1930s. The upper part of the relief in kanjing temple is still clearly visible. It is a great event in the history of Chinese cultural relics protection that the relief arhat statues of the prosperous Tang Dynasty in the East Mountain kanjing Temple of Longmen Grottoes were returned to China by the National Museum of art of Canada. It is also an important event in the cultural relics protection work of Henan Province. It is the first cultural relic stolen before liberation returned to our province from overseas. It fully reflects the consolidation and development of the traditional friendship between the Chinese and Canadian people, the increasing international status of China, the improvement of Henan's overseas popularity, and the increasing attention paid by the international community to the protection of Longmen Grottoes and human cultural heritage.

Address: Dongshan grottoes, Longmen Grottoes scenic area, Luolong District, Luoyang City

Longitude: 112.478519

Latitude: 34.550004

Ticket information: no ticket required. It is included in the 120 yuan ticket of Longmen Grottoes (Xishan grottoes, Dongshan grottoes, Xiangshan temple, Baiyuan, all sold uniformly).