The Ancient Ping Le Temple in Midsummer

Ping Le Temple, originally built during the Sui Dynasty, was once a mandatory stop for monks traveling through western Sichuan. Damaged during the turmoil of the late Ming Dynasty, it has undergone cycles of decline and revival. Though smaller in scale today, it retains much of its former charm. Now a modest-sized temple, it features towering nanmu trees standing erect within its grounds, with traces of its historical legacy faintly visible. During our visit to Hengshan Mountain coinciding with Guanyin Bodhisattva's birthday, devotees from surrounding villages flocked here in droves, filling the compact temple and its surroundings with continuous streams of visitors. As the resonant sound of ritual instruments echoed, wisps of incense smoke drifted through the gaps between the nanmu trees, gradually blending into the slightly chilly spring breeze. What was particularly moving was that while people prayed for the benevolent and beautiful Guanyin Bodhisattva's protection and offered incense to her, they also remembered Yan Junping, whose tomb lies just beyond the temple wall. Before Yan Junping's grave overgrown with wormwood and cypress trees, still-burning incense sticks revealed how this great Confucian scholar, through his cultural and personal charisma, has earned a reverence in local memory nearly akin to religious devotion.