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Golden Temple
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The Golden Temple lies on the Phoenix
Song Mountain in the north-eastern suburb of Kunming. In the
old times the mountain was frequented by birds, most of which
were parrots, and thus the name "Parrot Mountain".
In the Ming Dynasty the mountain was frequented by peacocks.
People took the peacocks for phoenixes and named it "Phoenix
Song Mountain".
Although named like Golden Temple, It is actually made of
copper. The copper temple was at last founded in the year
30(the Ming Wanli Calendar,1602A.D.).The new copper temple
was glittering and was thus named golden temple. In the later
part of the Ming Dynasty, the golden temple was moved to Mount
Jizu in west Yunnan(This temple was destroyed in 1966 during
the "Great Cultural Revolution"). Later (1671A.D.)
when Wu Sangui reigned over Yunnan during the Qing Dynasty,
to strengthen his regime, he tumed to God and spent a large
sum of money founding another golden temple (i.e. the present
one). The copper temple has a pseudo-wood structure with a
doubleaved roof on its gables. The temple is 6.7 m in height
and it is 7.8 m both in width and length. All of its beams
and columns, roof and ceiling, bucket arches, and other parts,
are made of copper. Research shows that the temple is made
of over 250 tons of copper, and is the largest and heaviest
copper temple in China. |
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