Hey everyone, first of all I would like to welcome you to my new contribution and hope you have a pleasant start into the new week! In my new post I would like to share a new experience I made in Shanghai.
An important part of China are of course all the ancient temples which usually have a religious meaning and are associated with Buddhism and also the Longhua Temple already has a long history behind it. The temple was built during the 3rd century under the rule of King Sun Qua and it's also assumed that this had a completely different name at the beginning and was renamed over time. The building served a pure religious purpose and is only one of many examples of temples that were built at that time and it's also important to mention that this was a time in which this belief spread strongly in general and this temple also contributed to the spread of buddhism. However, if a look at the history is taken, it leaves some questions open because some things are not so well documented when it comes to the construction, but it's suspected that after the temple was often destroyed by different dynasties it was rebuilt again and again. For some time, the temple probably also served as a memorial for those who died for the Communist Party of China, but this aspect is rather less known, but there were some scenarios here in the area around the temples during the 20th century and later, a place for the commemoration of the victims was created here.
It was not always peaceful here and there were also conflicts between religious or politics in the past and it came to the fact that religion was strongly suppressed or partly even banned, but this ban was lifted a few years later. While other places in the city are often very crowded, visitors will find a place of peace here which is certainly not nearly as crowded as other tourist places in the city. In addition to the use for public purposes, the temple is also used for Buddhist rituals and also as an important meeting place to celebrate their ceremonies or simply to pray and during my visit, I have seen some monks in traditional clothes, some of which even live here. An important aspect is probably also that it serves as a monastery in which some Buddhists live and it's extremely worth seeing for every visitor to the city who wants to get to know different facets of the culture and in addition to the use as a religious site it's an important part of the culture of the country that no visitor of the city should miss!
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new and like my post! I captured these pictures with my Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens.