March Trip to China 3: Returning to Origins Temple

Here are a couple of photos from Returning to Origins Temple (Guiyuan si). The first one is a huge pile of turtles on a lotus structure in one of the temple ponds. Turtles are great. I was not the only one interested in starting at them, as you can see in the reflection if you look closely!



The temple had five hundred golden statues of Luohans (like Buddhist saints), made sometime in the Republican period, I think. Here are just a few of them. They were used as a sort of fortune-telling device. You started in a certain direction and counted off a certain number, according to your own superstitions. The one you got to was supposed to be your sort of patron saint for the year. The next year you could come back. Of course, to get proper information about your saint, you had to pay 10 RMB and you got a little golden pilgrim card. Of course I had to get one, 10 RMB being peanuts for me. I got #230. If I get a chance, I will scan the card and translate it here a bit later.