The Four Heavenly Kings Hall at Guangfu Temple, in Shanghai.

The Hall of Four Heavenly Kings or Four Heavenly Kings Hall (Chinese: 天王殿; pinyin: Tiānwángdiàn), referred to as Hall of Heavenly Kings, is the first important hall inside a shanmen (mount gate) in Chinese Buddhist temples and is named due to the Four Heavenly Kings statues enshrined in the hall.[1]

Maitreya Buddha is enshrined in the Hall of Heavenly King and at the back of his statue is a statue of Skanda Bodhisattva facing the northern Mahavira Hall.[1] In Buddhism, the Maitreya Buddha, also the future Buddha is Sakyamuni's successor.[1] In the history of Chinese Buddhism, Maitreya Buddha has the handsome image in which he wears a coronet on his head and yingluo (瓔珞) on his body and his hands pose in mudras.[1] According to Song-dynasty Biographies of Eminent Monks [zh] (《宋高僧傳》; Sung kao-seng chuan), in the Later Liang Dynasty (907-923), there was a fat and big-stomached monk named "Qici" (契此和尚) in Fenghua of Mingzhou (now Zhejiang).[1] Carrying a sack on his shoulder, he always begged in the markets and streets, laughing.[1] So local people called him "The Sack Monk" (布袋和尚).[1] When he reached his Parinirvana, he left a Buddhist Gatha: "Maitreya, the true Maitreya, has thousands of hundreds of millions of manifestations, often instructing people of their time, even when they themselves do not recognize him." (彌勒真彌勒，分身百千億，時時示世人，世人總不識。)[1] So he was seen as the manifestation of Maitreya Buddha.[1] Since then, in Chinese Buddhist temples, Maitreya statues were shaped into a big fat monk's image with a big head and ears, laughing with his upper body exposed and cross-legged.[1]

The Skanda Bodhisattva behind him is the Dharmapalass of Buddhist temples.[1] As with Maitreya Buddha, the Skanda Bodhisattva's image has changed into that of a handsome ancient Chinese general who wore armors, and held a vajra in hand.[1]

Four Heavenly Kings' statues are enshrined in the left and right side of the Four Heavenly Kings Hall.[1] There are the eastern Dhṛtarāṣṭra (持國天王; Dhṛtarāṣṭra wears white clothes and armor and has a pipa, a Chinese plucked string musical instrument, in his hand), the southern Virūḍhaka (增長天王; Virūḍhaka wears blue clothes with a sword in his hand), the western Virūpākṣa (廣目天王; Virūpākṣa wears red clothes with a dragon or a snake wrapped around his arm), and the northern Vaiśravaṇa (多聞天王; Vaiśravaṇa wears green clothes with a precious umbrella in his right hand and a silver sacred mouse in his left hand).[1] The Four Heavenly Kings are said to live in Mount Meru and their task is to protect the world in their direction respectively.[1][2][3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Zi Yan (2012-08-01). Famous Temples in China. Beijing: Time Publishing and Media Co., Ltd. pp. 27–28. ISBN 978-7-5461-3146-7.
  2. ^ Wei Ran (2012-06-01). Buddhist Buildings. Beijing: China Architecture & Building Press. ISBN 9787112142880.
  3. ^ Han Xin (2006-04-01). Well-Known Temples of China. Shanghai: The Eastern Publishing Co. Ltd. ISBN 7506024772.

Further reading

  • Wang Guixiang (2016-06-17). 《中国汉传佛教建筑史——佛寺的建造、分布与寺院格局、建筑类型及其变迁》 [The History of Chinese Buddhist Temples] (in Chinese). Beijing: Tsinghua University Press. ISBN 9787302427056.
  • Zhang Yuhuan (2014-06-01). 《图解中国佛教建筑、寺院系列》 (in Chinese). Beijing: Contemporary China Publishing House. ISBN 9787515401188.

External links