Caoxi Temple: Exquisite

Located in Anning City, Kunming, Caoxi Temple has a Buddhist history that can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty and is related to the Sixth Patriarch of Zen Buddhism, Huineng, and his disciples. It is said that when Huineng's disciples traveled to Anning Hot Spring, they saw that the terrain here was similar to that of Caoxi Temple in Shaoguan, Guangdong, so they built a temple here and named it Caoxi Temple to show that it was a continuation of Caoxi Temple in Shaoguan. On February 14, 2025, we visited this ancient temple. When we entered the temple, we found that it was built in the Southern Song Dynasty, facing east and built on the mountain, covering an area of about 2,000 square meters, and divided into three platforms: the Hall of Heavenly Kings → the Hall of Guanyin → the Main Hall, rising one by one, with a rigorous architectural layout and a typical Chinese temple style (Photo 3). According to the text in the temple: the famous architect Liang Sicheng visited the temple in 1938, not only leaving a hand-drawn picture (Photo 3), but also, with his profound research on ancient Chinese architecture, believed that the beam and column structure of the main hall of Caoxi Temple, with the dougong as the fulcrum, was mechanically accurate; such Song Dynasty architecture is unique in Yunnan Province and rare in the country. These research results filled the gap in the history of ancient architecture in southwest China in Liang Sicheng's great work "History of Chinese Architecture" and were included in the "Illustrated Book of Ancient Chinese Architecture". After the tour, we felt that the temple was exquisite - both in terms of architecture and statues!