On the weekend, I visited Yunju Temple, starting with Shijing Mountain. The main activity was hiking, which wasn’t too strenuous, with some steps along the way. It took about half an hour to reach the top. There are nine cave libraries on the mountain, housing over 4,000 stone slabs inscribed with Buddhist scriptures carved by monks since the Sui Dynasty. Only the Leiyin Cave is open to the public, where some stone slabs are displayed, but they are behind barriers, making it impossible to view them up close or read the text clearly. One can only sense their presence. There are also two Tang Dynasty pagodas at the summit, but the path leading up is blocked off. You can only glimpse the Golden Princess Pagoda from mid-slope, while the other single-eave Tang pagoda remains out of sight. At the tea pavilion in the middle of the mountain, there is a half-standing Tang pagoda, with its pagoda spire and five-tiered eaves dating back to the Tang Dynasty, though the pagoda body is newly constructed.
About 1 kilometer down from Shijing Mountain is Yunju Temple, where the famous North Tower is the main attraction. The tower base is in the Chinese pavilion style from the Sui and Tang Dynasties, while the tower body above is in the Tibetan-style inverted bowl style from the Liao Dynasty. Together with the four Tang Dynasty towers at the four corners, they form the Vajra Throne Tower. Among them, the tower at the southwest corner, built in the second year of Jingyun (AD 711), is the oldest surviving tower in Beijing. The pagoda in the northeast corner, built in the 10th year of the Kaiyuan era (722 AD), is the best-preserved Tang Dynasty pagoda in terms of text and imagery. The four Tang Dynasty pagodas share a similar style, featuring square Buddha niches with six tiers of eaves. Both the interior and exterior of the pagodas are carved with Buddha and human figures, and one side of the exterior wall bears an inscription recording information about the pagoda.
Around the North Pagoda, there are also some artifacts relocated from other places, including a thousand-Buddha stele from the Sui Dynasty, a single-eave pagoda from the Tang Dynasty, and stone steles, sutra pillars, and other artifacts from the Yuan, Liao, Ming, and Qing Dynasties, which are well worth taking the time to view and appreciate. Looking westward from the North Pagoda, there is another Liao Dynasty Tiger Pagoda on the mountaintop, but due to time constraints, I did not go up the mountain to take a closer look. To the north of the North Pagoda, there are three Qing Dynasty pagodas in the Tibetan-style inverted bowl style, commemorating three Qing Dynasty abbots of Yunju Temple.
The South Pagoda of Yunju Temple was also originally a Liao Dynasty pagoda, but it was unfortunately destroyed by Japanese forces during the war. The reconstructed pagoda is new and poorly crafted, not worth seeing. Near the South Pagoda are two Liao Dynasty pagodas: one is the Wan Gong Pagoda, built by Master Tongli of the Liao Dynasty in honor of Master Jingwan, the founding master of the Sui Dynasty who carved the stone scriptures; the other is the Scripture-Pressing Pagoda above the Stone Scripture Underground Palace. The Stone Sutra Underground Palace houses over ten thousand stone slab sutras, which can only be viewed through glass. Additionally, next to the Great Compassion Hall, the highest hall in Yunju Temple, there is a Liao Dynasty Tiankai Relic Pagoda over one meter tall. The relics must be viewed inside the hall; they are very small, roughly the size of a grain of rice, and do not appear particularly remarkable.
Yunju Temple also houses over 22,000 volumes of Ming Dynasty paper-bound scriptures and over 7,000 volumes of Qing Dynasty woodblock-printed scriptures. There is a dedicated exhibition in the central hall where visitors can view the scriptures up close. Unfortunately, lacking expertise in Buddhist scriptures, I could not discern their significance.
Yunju Temple houses a wealth of cultural relics, and if you take the time to appreciate them, you could spend half a day to a full day there. The temple grounds are also pleasant, with pine and cypress trees, bamboo groves, and various cats patrolling the premises and dozing off. The 40-yuan admission fee covers both the temple and Shijing Mountain, making it well worth the price.