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wutai mountain has long cultural history and magnificent natural sight .in the temples of the whole mountain ate kept 17445 buddha statues ,224pieces of stone tablets, 58 pieces of horizontal boards, 7297 volumes of scriptures books in 928 cases,frescoes of 911sq.km and 1355 pieces of valuable cultural relics such as musical instruments used in buddhist mass and offering wares .all these are the valuable materials for studying the ancient history .science and culture and arts of china . wutai mountain was also renowned for the revolutionary base area .in the initial period of the war of resistance against japan, wutai mountain was the first base area of resistance against japan behind enemy¡¯s lines in china and the birthplace of shanxi ¨cchahar ¨chebei border area .in the years of revolutionary war ,the revolutionaries of old generation such as mao zedong ,zhou enlai ,liu shaoqi and zhu de and the international communist fighter batune fought and worked here. today ,what we will tour at first is xiantong temple ,xiantong temple is situated at the south foot of lingjiu peak in the central district of taihuai town and is one of five main mediation places of wutai mountain .it is also the leader temple most worshipped in the buddhist circle of wutai mountain .xiantong temple occupies a land of 43700sq.km and has 400 houses and 65 halls in total .it was initially built in the eleventh year of yongping period ,east han dynasty and has a history of nearly 2000 years to date .since the peak of posa top is very similar to the vulture peak of india (the place where sakyamuni taught scriptures of his disciples),it was named lingjiu temple after the name of the mountain later ming emperor of han dynasty added two characters ¡°da fu¡±in chinese (meaning grandness and creditability )before ¡°lingjiu temple ¡±so that the complete name of temple was dafu lingjiu temple .it was rebuilt in xiaowen emperor period of north wei dynasty and divided into 12 courtyards .it was also called garden temple because of the garden in front .later ,it war rebuilt once again by taizong emperor of tang dynasty and renamed great huayan temple by wu zetian because the newly translated huayan scriptures were collected here .it finally was granted a horizontal board ¡°large xiantong temple ¡±by zhu yuanhang,the taizu emperor of ming dynasty[bell tower]bell tower is of two ¨cstoreyed and three-eave structure ,and on the beam in the tower is hung a bronze bell,the largest one in wutai mountain .such bell was called long ringing bell and also called nether world bell and cast in july of the forty-eighth year of wanly period ,ming dynasty .with a weight of up to 9999.5jin.[dragon and tiger tablet s]there is no heaven king hall but only two pieces of stone tablets in xiantong temple ,the dragon and tiger tablets we see now .these two tablets have the implied meaning that dragon and tiger is guarding the gate and there is no need to trouble the four main heaven kings .[front courtyard ]the tablet board ¡°rosy clouds decorated heaven city¡± in gold characters on the top of gate was personally written by qinanlong emperor .in the hall are worshipped 3 statues of bodhisattvas ,with guanyin bodhisattva in the middle and wenshu bodhisattva and puxian bodhisattva on both sides separately ,so it was also called ¡°three-main-scholar hall ¡± it was also called scripture collection hall because scripture books are fully placed on both sides. in each of the left and right tablet pavilions outside guanyin hall is a tablet .the two tablet pavilions are completely the same in size of tablet ,shape system and pattern, one piece engraved with ¡°tablet inscription of xiantong temple personally written by emperor ¡° and the other being characterless and called characterless tablet .the stone tablets of wutain mountain are roughly divided into imperial tablet .official document tablet ,merits and virtues tablet ,event record keeping tablet ,poem and writing tablet ,tomb tablet and the special buddha foot tablet and characterless tablet .among the special characterless tablets at home ,three pieces are most attractive ,i e the first is the characterless tablet left on the top of taishan mountain for guarding against the six states after qinshi emperor defeated the six states ;the second is the characterless tablet set up by wu zetian at qian tomb in xi¡¯an ,meaning that merits and demerits as well as right and wrong would be left behind to the later generations to comment and no handwriting was left ;the third is the characterless tablet we see just now ,which was set up by kangxi emperor .the characterless of the tablet seemed to praise that xiantong temple was so grand and magnificent and buddhism was so broad and profound that it was difficult to express them in written language.as record in ¡°annals of cool mountain ¡±,under the two pieces of stone tablets were two circular water ponds .according to legend ,after kangxi arriving at wutai mountain at that time ,as soon as he entered xiantong temple he saw at far distance that the decorated arch on posa top looks like a big dragon-head .the two wood poles look like dragon horns ,and the 108 flight steps look like dragon tongues ,after entering xiantong temple ,kangxi asked at one the old buddhist abbot said just coincided with what kangxi saw ,the old buddhist abbot said that ,when the sun shines on the water ponds at noon ,there would appear two light rings on both sides of the decorated arch of posa top and posa top was just a live dragon .then,kangxi gave an order to let the monks of xiantong temple fill up the two water ponds and set up two pieces of stone tablets ,with one tablet bearing written language and the other characterless .[large wenshu hall]wutai mountain is the place where wenshu bodhisattva makes buddhist rites ,and in most of the temples were build wenshu hall .while the name of this wenshu hall was prefixed with a ¡°large¡±, and such a word ¡°large¡± contains 4 meanings ; the first is that xingtong temple is the oldest temple in wutai mountain ¡®the second is that xiantong temple is the temple with largest floor area among the temple of wutai mountain ¡®the third is that xiantong temple is the temple most completely preserved in wutai mountain ;the fourth is that the number of wenshu bodhisattva worshipped here is most (6 statues of wenshu bodhisattvas in total ),so that it is called large wenshu hall ,since wenshu in 5 directions can be worshipped at the same time ,local people call it ¡°convenient pilgrimage platform¡±