Hall of the Heavenly King 天王殿

I was a bit disoriented when I came to a gate which said Chongsheng Temple. I thought I was already in Chongsheng Temple and that the halls I have visited are part of the temple grounds. Well, apparently not. The previous halls merely seemed like connectors from the Three Pagodas to the Chongsheng Temple itself. It seems that this was two attractions in one place. Not unique in China since they have turned previously separate attractions into a single one under one entrance, probably to increase the perceived value of the place, after all, they did spend a lot of money reconstructing the Chongsheng Temple.

Upon entry into the Chongsheng Temple grounds, there was a small park with ponds, much like an imperial palace in typical Ming and Qing style. The parallels between this temple and a palace where not lost to me as I have been to a few imperial palaces here in the country. Rather than linger in this admittedly nice little park, I head straight to the main hall, one of the more important halls in the park is the Hall of the Heavenly King. I’m quite sure I have visited another hall of the heavenly king somewhere else in the country as this seems to be a very common theme. It houses a statue of the heavenly king. The statue was dark so it was difficult to take a photo of him. So I continued on.

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