8 Magnificent Temples That Will Leave You in Awe

✅ Withstood 500 years of history and an 8.0 magnitude earthquake without damage! Before coming to Shanxi, I never thought a temple could be so beautiful that it would leave me in awe. Compared to the Yungang Grottoes and the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda, this ancient temple is more low-key and has far fewer visitors. However, it is home to one of China's four ancient pagodas, the world's most well-preserved glazed pagoda! It's magnificent and exquisite.👍 ✅ The Feihong Pagoda stands in Guangsheng Temple, 17 km north of Hongdong County, Shanxi Province. Like a beautiful rainbow spanning time and space, it tells a story of a thousand years. This pagoda is not only a treasure of ancient Chinese architecture but also a brilliant pearl of Buddhist culture. The Feihong Pagoda was built in the Han Dynasty and was originally the Ashoka Pagoda. Over the course of history, it has undergone several repairs and reconstructions, and finally reached its current scale in the sixth year of the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty (1527). The Feihong Pagoda is a pavilion-style pagoda with 13 stories, standing 47.6 meters tall, with a base diameter of about 14 meters. The entire pagoda is shaped like a cone, with a tall and slender shape and smooth lines, like a sword piercing the sky, showing the grandeur and magnificence of the ancient pagoda.👍 ❗️ Guangsheng Temple: Hongdong, Linfen, Shanxi Province ✅ Admission: 70; round-trip sightseeing bus: 20/person ✅ With its red walls and green tiles, this magnificent ancient architectural complex is the famous thousand-year-old Guangsheng Temple, the filming location of the Tang Monk sweeping the pagoda in the 1986 version of Journey to the West. The pagoda of Guangsheng Temple is called the Feihong Pagoda, one of China's four famous pagodas, and the world's most well-preserved glazed pagoda. Ming Dynasty scholar Wang Han once wrote a poem praising the Feihong Pagoda: "A pagoda stands in the blue sky, surrounded by green cypress trees swaying in the autumn wind. Clouds rise from the treasure hall, where monks meditate, and Mount Sumeru is within reach." As a first batch national key cultural relic protection unit, its value is self-evident.👍