Zilusi Temple is located at the turn of Mountain Zilingshan, 3 km to the southwest of Hongcun Village.
Firstly built in A.D. 843 (the third year of Huichang Period of the Tang Dynasty), the temple was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. It is recorded that Lingyinsi Temple in Hangzhou of the Song Dynasty was its very immitation. In order to satisfy the needs of the Buddhists and extend the Buddhist culture, the temple was rebuilt with a 50 million RMB investment from Beijing Zhongkun Group, under the consent of the Provincial Bureau of Religions in Anhui in August, 2003. The terrain of the original Zilusi Temple fits for the Buddhist theory, according to Dignitary Shihuaishan, the Chinese abbot for 蓝毗尼 of Nepal, and associate Secretary in General of Chinese Buddhism Association. He said after his research on the spot that it was an ideal place for setting up a temple. |