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Putian
Links The
Putian Burgess Family! Mazu
(Sea Goddess) and Meizhou Island Guanghua
Temple and Sakya Buddhist Pagoda
Xianyou
(Woodcarvers, waterfalls, Dream Temples) Fujian
Mosques Fujian
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Mulan
Dam Southern
Shaolin Temple (home of Kung Fu?) Plum
Queen Veggie
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Guanghua
Temple is probably Putian’s biggest attraction. One of
Fujian’s largest monasteries, with over
300 monks and students, it was built in 558 A.D. and rebuilt in 1875.
This sprawling 16,000 square meter complex’s most off the wall feature
is a stone wall that is over one kilometer long.
Guanghua Temple
has a long history of printing Buddhist scriptures in China.

The two granite columns in front of the temple’s main building have ancient
characters that shed light on not only the ancient translation of Buddhist
scriptures from Hindu to Chinese, but also on the origins of the ancient
Putian and Xianyou dialects.
Next door is the
Sinking Sakya Pagoda...
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Sinking
Sakya Buddhist Pagoda,
a five-story, 36 meter high pagoda built in 1165, has one of the wildest
assortments of carvings you’ll ever find—everything from Buddha and his
disciples to playful lions. It looks like its sinking but in fact it is
just the build up of soil that has washed down from the hills around it.
Southern
Shaolin Temple in Putian No one contests Guanghua’s
claims to being an ancient source of sciptures, but Southern Shaolin Temple,
which claims to be the origin of this unique martial art, has some stiff
competition with Fuqing and Quanzhou.
Whether Southern Shaolin Kung Fu originated in Putian or not, the city
certainly has a very ancient heritage of martial arts, and the temple
has become a Mecca for martial arts enthusiasts and each year attracts
delegations from all over the world.
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广化寺大殿门口的这两根石柱上至今仍完好地保留着古代铭文。这些铭文不仅是研究早期梵文汉译的珍贵资料,也是考究莆田与仙游地区古方言的难得素材。
莆田广化寺建于公元558年,是福建省目前规模最大的寺庙之一。寺内有僧人和佛学弟子300多名。广化寺的释迦文佛塔塔身看上去似乎还在不停地下沉,实际上却是由于山体水土流失,致使四周地面上升而造成的错觉。
广化寺是“中国古经书发源地”。对此,人们没有任何争议。然而,关于南少林的发祥地,莆田就遭遇了来自本省福清、泉州两座城市的强力挑战。不管正宗的南少林功夫是不是出于莆田,莆田的武术底蕴从古至今绵延深远。莆田南少林也因此成为武术迷的圣地,每年都有来自世界各地的武术爱好者不远千里前来拜师学艺。
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Last Updated: May 2007
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