The Main Hall of the Tianning Temple is located on a hill in the southeast of Jinghua City, Zhejiang Province.
The Tianning Temple, originally known as Dazang Temple, was built between 1008 and 1016 in the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127). It was later named Tianning Wanshou Buddhist Temple. After many renovations, the temple still retains some architectural features from the transitional period between the Song (960-1127) and Ming (1368-1644) dynasties, providing important data for the study of ancient architecture.
Sitting in the north and facing south, the temple is three bays wide and square in shape, in line with the overall arrangement of small Buddhist temples of the Song-Yuan (1271-1368) period. It has a single-layered gable and hip roof supported by 16 columns that divide the hall into three sections. The girders are all made of assembled small wooden boards -- a rarely seen technique adopted in early constructions. The hall's dougongs (wooden square blocks inserted between the top of a column and a crossbeam) and the outer eaves rise up, making the temple very precious among other temples in China today.
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