Zhiyun Temple
Qing-dynasty monastery rebuilt from ashes after nineteenth-century warfare, its dragon-carved hall raised beside a mirror-still lake.
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About this audio guide
This guide to Zhiyun Temple near Lashi Lake in Lijiang traces a monk named Luoseng, from the Naxi town of Shuhe, who built the monastery in 1727 after a stranger lifted a walking stick toward colored clouds and told him this was where to build. It follows how the monastery grew across generations into twenty-four residence halls, a main hall on an elevated platform with pillars twelve meters tall, and triple-layered carved doorways, becoming by most accounts the grandest of Lijiang's five great temples. Then came eighteen years of ethnic warfare through the Xianfeng and Tongzhi reigns, unrest that tore through Yunnan in the 1850s and 1860s. Look at the dragon carvings on the hall's corners and the peach trees on the grounds, prized now for their size and sweetness.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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