Linggu Temple - Linggu Pagoda - Sun Yatsen Mausoleum - Zhongshan Mountain Park: Nanjing: Chinese Political History, Culture, Customs.
Linggu Temple and Pagoda - Zhongshan Mountain National Park Nanjing.
This article is just one of a series of photographic articles currently being presented at King's Calendar relating to two trips I undertook; to Nanjing on April 3rd and to Ningbo April 12th 2008. Links to all articles may be found at the end of this article.
Introduction
Linggu Temple Zhongshan Park Nanjing.
I currently teach English in Suzhou City Jiangsu Province, the Capital of Which is Nanjing. Friday 4th April 2008 was the Chinese 'Qing Ming' Festival, which is now a public holiday. Having only one class to attend on Thursday 3rd, I headed off to Nanjing to meet up with my former student and current friend Zhang Mingxing. On April 4th we spent the day at Zhongshan Mountain National Park. In addition to this article about my adventures in Zhongshan Mountain National Park, there are two others:
This particular short article concerns Linggu Temple, just one of many interesting places within the Park. Zhongshan is of course the resting place of Sun Yat-sen.
After Mingxing and I had finished at Sun Yatsen's Mausoleum we took the brightly coloured tourist 'train' (bus) to the Linggu Temple area and did some exploring. If it was not bad enough that we had already endured the 392 steps ascending to 70 meters through 10 terraces to get to Sun Yatsen's Mausoleum, When we got to the Linggu Cemetery area, we had to climb more steps.
Text in italics is a faithful reproduction of what I photographed from signs at the park.
Steps to the Cemetery at Linggu
The cemetery was established on the site of Linggu Temple in 1935. Those buried in this cemetery are mainly officers and soldiers killed in the Northern Expedition or the Anti-Japanese Battle in Shanghai. The main buildings include the front gate (Hongshan Gate), the memorial archway, the sacrificial hall (Beamless Hall), the memorial hall (Pine-wind Pavilion) and the cenotaph (linggu Pagoda).
The archway is marked by reinforced concrete on a lofty platform above 42 stone steps. The 10-meter-high and five-arch building is roofed with green glazed tiles, full of power and grandeur. On the tablets of the archway there are eight characters meaning Benevolence and righteousness and Salvaging the nation and the people, which were written by Zhang Jingjiang, one of the senior members of Kuomintang. In front of the archway there is a pair of stone Pixiu (a kind of fabulous wild beast recorded in ancient books), each standing on one side. They were donated by the Seventeenth Army when the archway was built.
Hall of Public Sacrifice
The Beamless Hall is the only survivor from the Ming Dynasty in Linggu Temple area. It was once called "Hall of Boundless Life" because it was built to worship the AMitabha Buddha, whose neame means "Boundless life". The brick-vault structure was built without a single piece of wood or beam, hence resulting in its current name. The KMT government had a cemetery built here for the KIAs in 1931, it was changed into a hall for public sacrifice.
The Beamless Hall
The Beamless Hall contains one hundred and ten blue stone steles, in which carved is the name list of soldiers of national revolutionary army who were killed in the war. Each stele is numbered and is arranged chronologically. In the first to sixty first stele carved are the names of national soldiers who died in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui privinces during the Nrothern Expedition (1926 to 1930). In the sixty second to sixty seventh stele carved are the names of soldiers from No. 19 Troop killed in Songhu anti-Japanese War (January to April 1932). In the sixty eighth to a hundred and tenth stele carved are the names of soldiers killed in North China anti-Japanese war (September 1931 to May 1933). The death toll amounts to 33,224.
It's the What that we know - not the Why?
The Stone Tortoise is 5.3 meters long, 2.5 meters wide and 2 meters high. It looks majestic as it lifts its head and stretches its neck. Under the tortoise is a stone Xumizuo which is 5.9 meters in length, 3.6 meters in width and 0.37 meters in height. The reason for the construction of this stone tortoise is still unknown to us yet. As studied by experts, it probably has something to do with Linggu Temple of the Ming Dynasty.
An example of Displays behind glass.
Burning Yuanming Palace
In October 1860, the allied forces between Britain and France occupied Beijing. They looted over the city and burnt off the imperial garden Yuanming Palace.
Treaty of Nanjing
On August 29 1842, the Qing's government signed the humiliating Treaty of Nanjing with the British government. From then on, China gradually was downgraded to be a semi-colony and -feudal society.
Humen Anti-drug Campaign
In June 1839, Lin Tse-hus, a national hero, launched his anti-drug campaign. He forced foreign dealers to hand in over one million kilos opium, which was toally destroyed in Humen beach. Uprightness asserted itself through this action.
Discipline Hall of Linggu Temple / Memorial Hall of Revolution
This place used to be the Discipline Hall of Linggu Temple in the Ming Dynasty. When the Kuomintang built the Cemetery of the KIAs of the National Revolutionary Army in 1931, a "Memorial Hall of Revolution" was put up here. Designed by Murphy, a famous AMerican architect, the building was completed in 1933 when objects left behind by the dead officers and soldiers were on display. After the founding of the PRC, it was renamed as Pine-wind Pavilion and changed into a small shop dealing in souvenirs. A stone tripod at the back of it was a gift from Liu Zhenhua, President of ANhui Province in the 1930's.
Linggu Pogoda.
Built in 1931-1933, Linggu Pagoda used to be the memorial tower in honor of the KIAs of the National Revolutionary Army. The nine-storeyed pagoda is 60 meters in height with 8 facets on each storey. The inscription of jingzhong baoguo (meaning "Serving the nation with utmost loyalty") on the exterior walls of the pagoda was written by Chiang Kai-shek and on the interior walls of the pagoda was inscribed with Sun Yat-sen's speeches entitled "A Speech on the opening ceremony of Huangpu Military School" and "A Farewell speech made before the northward expedition", which were written respectively by Wu Jingheng and Yu Youren, two senior members of Kuomintang.
249 Steps to climb that tower - I counted them.
Remember now that we had already done a return trip on the 392 steps (plus terraces) at Sun Yatsen's Mausoleum, and had to climb about 100 steps to the archway at this Memorial to the Revolution; it was now the time to climb the interior stairwell of the Linggu Pogoda. There were no signs, but I counted the steps. There were 249 of them winding tightly ever upward, with not enough space for two people to comfortably pass each other. Those 249 steps of course had also to be descended. I was literally dizzy. Both on the way up and the way down, I kept my eyes focused on my feet and numbered out the steps aloud. Everyone thought I was crazy, including the French couple at the top who assumed that since my guide and I were speaking English that I would not also be able to speak French. (!@#$%^&*)
R.P.BenDedek is from Brisbane Australia and is the author of 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran' at http://www.kingscalendar.com His academic articles set forth Apologetics for and results of his discovery of an "artificial chronological scheme" running through the Bible, Josephus, the Damascus Documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Seder Olam Rabbah.
He writes photographic 'Stories from China' and social editorial commentaries, both at KingsCalendar, and as a contributing newspaper columnist. He currently teaches Conversational English in China and in addition to his English Lessons at KingsCalendar, he has created specific sites for Students of English.
