What are the common stone carvings in ancient temples?

Temple, a treasure house of China art, is a symbol of China's long history and culture. In ancient times, almost every city had a temple to worship their patron saint, and most cities had many ancient temples to worship other sayings. In modern times, ancient temples have become places of worship.

Temples are not only places where people convert to religious beliefs, but also places where history and culture meet. Stone carvings are often used as decorations in ancient temple buildings. Now let's take a look at the stone carvings commonly used in ancient temples.

The mountain gate is shaped with various stones, creating a visible and tangible architectural decoration with a certain space, so as to reflect social life and express meaning. The stone archway not only has a unique architectural structure, but also integrates sculpture, painting, inscriptions, calligraphy and other arts, and integrates ancient social life concepts, feudal ethics, feudal traditional ethics and ancient folk customs in one furnace, with magnificent artistic charm, high aesthetic value and rich and profound historical and cultural connotations. Every stone archway is a stone carving handicraft. China traditional stone carving techniques, such as round carving, through carving, high relief, shallow relief, flat relief and yinxian carving, are widely used in the carving of Shipai archway.

Dragon column is a traditional building of the Chinese nation with a long history. The column body is wrapped with Yunlong, and a beautiful cloud disk crosses the column body, as if clouds were inserted in the clouds. The crouching beast on the top exposed plate is lifelike.

Shishi is a common ornament in traditional buildings in China. The stone lion is majestic, powerful and domineering, and the town demon exorcises evil spirits, making Qi Youfu. Shishi is one of the common evil spirits in the traditional culture of Han nationality in China.

Incense burners are the most familiar ones in China. It is not only a Buddhist ceremony in a Buddhist temple, but also a necessary offering for China's family. China's national culture developed very early. In ancient times, people often smoked rooms with incense to deodorize them. Therefore, the ancients read and played the piano, and liked to burn a furnace of incense first, so that they could clear up their distractions and concentrate themselves. Paying attention to drinking water and thinking about the source is the virtue of China people, so since ancient times, China people have worshipped the god of heaven and earth and sacrificed their ancestors first; Burning incense to show respect is a major item in the worship ceremony, and incense burners come in handy.

A rectangular table usually placed in front of the natural table in the hall is about the same height as a square table. Sacrifice often provides incense burners, wax poles and offerings, hence the name "offering a table". It often forms a set of furniture with a natural square table, two "single seats" or a pair of armchairs. It is even more essential to provide a table in the temple. Among the materials used to make the altar, the stone carving altar is more elegant, simple and natural, beautiful and generous, and the exquisite carving won the hearts of the people, and the stone carving altar is more durable.

Stone lanterns are also a kind of plastic arts. They use all kinds of stones to create visible and tangible works of art with a certain space. Stone lantern is a traditional lighting device in East Asia, which originated in China. The earliest prototype is the lamp when China worships the Buddha statue.

Stone railings, which were called "trunks" or "goulan" in ancient China, are safety facilities on bridges and buildings. Stone railings are often installed around the abutment, on both sides of the bridge, on both sides of the stairs, on both sides of the colonnade and around the pavilion, which plays a protective role and can also be used to divide the space. Especially in garden buildings, stone railings are the most essential, which can not only block the enclosure, but also separate different areas; It will not cut off the connection between areas, and the carved patterns on the stone railings also play a role in embellishing the environment.

Most stone drums do not exist alone. They often produce the overall decorative effect of stone carving together with doornails, doorsills, doors, doorframes, railings, etc., and are put together with stone lions to enhance the aesthetic feeling, which has the decorative effect of blessing, auspiciousness and evil spirits.

Stone pagodas, also known as stupas, were used to worship and place relics of eminent monks in ancient times and still play a decorative role in ancient temples.

The Buddha statue takes the Buddha as the image and is carved with stone, which is the sustenance of people's faith and is used for sacrifice and worship. Buddha statues have 32 phases and 80 ideal faces, and the shape, expression and posture of each Buddha statue are peaceful, quiet, auspicious and solemn. Most of the statues are Sakyamuni, Guanyin and Maitreya.

Relief is a sculpture. The sculptor carved a concave-convex image on the flat plate, which made it out of the plane of the original material. Relief is to use compression to deal with objects, and to show three-dimensional space through perspective and other factors, and it is only for one or two sides to watch. Relief can be attached to the carrier or exist relatively independently. In ancient temples, it is often used on the wall of the main entrance of Buddhist temples, which is very decorative.