Youxian Monastery  游仙寺

Site Information

Youxian Monastery is located on Niushan about 1.5 km northeast of Zaili village, in Hexi town and contains artifacts from the Song, Jin, Ming, and Qing dynasties. It is registered as a national-level important cultural heritage protection site). Youxian Monastery was originally named Cijiao cloister. According to a stele inscription in the monastery, it was originally built in the first year of Song Dynasty’s Chunhua reign period (990), and was later destroyed in war. There were reconstructions in the Jin, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. The complex occupies 4550 square meters and is oriented north-south with the entry facing south. The three-courtyard style arrangement has the Mountain Gate, front hall, middle hall, and back hall built on the central axis, which is framed on the east and west side halls with an additional subsidiary cloister on the western side of the monastery. The extant front hall was built during the Song dynasty, and the central hall during the Jin dynasty. The rest of the structures were built during the Ming and Qing periods. The back hall is a structure from the Ming Dynasty with a 0.4 meter stone foundation. The building is three bays wide and four-rafters deep with a corridor at the front eaves. It is crowned with a single-eaves flush-gable roof, and five bay front corridor. The pillar-top bracket sets have five outward steps with double slanted bracket arms. There is a bracket set between pillars in each bay. The bases of the pillars have square quartzite stone foundations with pebbled edges. A geshan door is placed in the central bay, and lattice windows are placed on two subsidiary bays. One Song stele, one Yuan stone tablet, one Ming stele, and two Qing steles are preserved in the monastery.2

External Links

Wikipedia (in Chinese)

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