Jin Shrines, Fengsheng Monastery  晉祠奉聖寺

The site of the Fengsheng Monastery was thought to have originally been the residence of the Tang period general Yuchi Jingde 尉遲敬德 (d. ca. 658 CE). It was converted to a monastery in 622, under the Tang dynasty.

The original Fengsheng Monastery was built on a large scale with four buildings on the central axis: a Mountain Gate front hall, middle hall, and back hall. It also had bell, drum, and scripture preserving (cangjing 藏經) towers (lou 樓). Grouped together they made a procession of three courtyards, but none of these original buildings are extant. The present Fengsheng Monastery was rebuilt in the late 1970s using historic structures relocated from other sites as its axial buildings. It currently measures 126 meters east-west 33 meters and north-south, and is oriented facing eastward covering an area of 4158 square meters. Its major axial buildings are the Mountain Gate (shanmen 山門) , the Transition Hall (guodian 過殿) and the Mahāvīra Treasure Hall (Daxiongbaodian 大雄寶殿). The building used here as the Mountain Gate was originally Jingqing Gate, and had been the main gate leading into Jinci. This structure was originally built during the Yuan dynasty. Its current timber structure reflects Yuan dynasty stylistic characteristics, but the glazed roof tiles are from the Ming dynasty. It is a single-eaves hip-gable roof 10.5 meters in height and is five bays wide and four rafters deep. The Jingqingmen was moved to its current position as Fengsheng Monastery Mountain Gate in the 1980s. 2