The murals of the Dragon King Hall seem to be Buddhist figures, but if you look closely, it is not a Buddhist story, nor is it about the cause of the birth, but more like a Taoist thing, which shows a microcosm of social life in an interesting way. The common people dressed up, ate tea, cooked rice, fished, chopped wood, collected medicine, and chatted, the princes, nobles, and dignitaries sounded gongs in the opening of the road, and the paintings depicted displaced refugees, depressed musicians, kind and industrious farmers, and pot-bellied magnates.

The only thing that can be regarded as a Buddhist story is the "Xuanzang Sutra Diagram", the dragon king is also the nine-headed dragon king of the Eight Divisions of the Heavenly Dragon, a kind of dragon king who can go around Mount Myoko and feed on dragons in Buddhist scripture stories. Now the imperial court advocates Taoism, and the incense of Baihui Temple is not prosperous, in the eyes of Yang Zhi, it is not easy for such a temple to be preserved, and if there is no local rich gentry or powerful people behind it, I am afraid it would have been changed to Taoism long ago.

In this atmosphere, most of the pilgrims who come on weekdays are devout to the Buddha, and the incense in the merit box is all voluntary, and the Dragon King Hall is naturally a neglected place; Yang Zhi is still unwilling to give up the clues of the mural, and finally sees a little clue in a crack, the crack shows that behind the whitewashed wall is not a brick or an earthen wall, but a whitewashed white, although it is old and has turned yellow, but it can still be seen, and there are even some spots of color in some places.

Yang Zhi from later generations, how much to know the story of Mogao Grottoes, due to historical reasons, the dense paintings in Dunhuang art and the murals of the new painting style of the Central Plains were preserved to later generations, archaeologists found that the caves of the Northern Song Dynasty were mostly rebuilt from the caves of the previous generation, and the murals of the Song Dynasty were often covered with murals of the Tang Dynasty or the Northern Wei Dynasty.

Looking at the dragon king sculpture in the Dragon King Palace, Yang Zhi really couldn't see what kind of dragon it was, but he saw that the dragon king's body was still in the shape of a dragon, and he was not wearing clothes, but it was shining with gold and belonged to the four-clawed golden dragon. In ancient mythology, the dragon is a divine beast that leads to heaven, is the mount of ascending immortals, the early Taoism only admits that the dragon has the magic power of casting clouds and rain, but only uses it as a foot force; Finally, the dragon king of Taoism is everywhere, there are dragons in the heavens, dragons in the four seas, dragons in the forty-eight mountains, and all the dragons that are touched with the water, whether they are in the lakes, seas, rivers, or even in the ponds and marshes of the deep pools, as well as the wells and springs, there are dragon kings stationed.

Yang Zhi didn't want to bother with it, so he walked to the front to find the idle monk and handed over five taels of silver, now Baihui Temple is struggling to live, and the incense money for a day is sometimes only about one or two, although five taels of silver can not be compared with the rich and noble, it is more or less a handiwork. Especially seeing that Yang Zhi is Yang Zhi of the toiling public, the monk who knows the guest suddenly moved his compassion for Yang Zhi's piety, and folded his hands and saluted: "Amitabha, the donor Buddha is sincere, the Buddha will definitely bless and protect more, eliminate disasters and difficulties, and be auspicious and safe!"

Yang Zhiheshi returned the salute and said, "Thank you for the master's auspicious words!"

"Is the donor going to petition or ask for a signature?" the monk then asked, and began to wonder in his heart whether to sign one for Yang Zhi, Yang Zhi said politely: "I am from Bianliang, and I am most interested in the history of the temple, I don't know if there are any previous allusions to this Baihui Temple, and it is inconvenient for the master to say?"

"Convenient, convenient! Baihui Temple was built in the Tang Dynasty, donor, if you are interested in historical sites, but come to the right place!" "Zhike monk's eyes lit up when he heard this, Zhike monk is well-informed, and naturally understands that Yang Zhi looks dignified, if he says to the Buddha, he may just be a poor person, but if Yang Zhi is interested in historical sites and comes from Bianliang, then this outfit is nothing, maybe just for the convenience of travel and play, not to let Xiao worry, he is likely to be a rich master.

The monk glanced at the side door next to the main hall, then invited Yang Zhi to go to the hall and asked, "What kind of allusions do the donors want to know?"

Yang Zhi smiled and said: "I heard that the temple is from the Tang Dynasty, but I just looked at the murals in the Dragon King Palace, and it was clearly the painting style of the Song Dynasty." ”

The monk praised: "The donor is really an expert, the murals of the Dragon King Hall are indeed newly added after the Song Dynasty, listen to the old before."

The monk said that that year, there was a monk named Mei Yang who turned his fortune to a sum of money, rebuilt the Dragon King Palace, and invited the painting monk Miao Yin of Xiangguo Temple in Tokyo to help, and the murals on the wall were all from Miao Yin's handwriting. ”

Obviously, because of the age, the monk did not know the detailed process of the year, and only knew the names of the two monks, but for Yang Zhi, it was equivalent to one more clue, since the monk Miao Yin came from the Great Xiangguo Temple, he should not be an unknown person, maybe he could start from the identity of the monk Miao Yin and hear some interesting things. Yang Zhi looked at the monk and said casually: "That dragon is coated with gold dust all over its body, and it needs to be changed almost once a year or two?"

The monk smiled implicitly and said: "The donor has gone, that kind of gold dust has been at least thirty years, and it has been like this since the monk entered the temple, just wipe it with water once a year, and the golden light still does not recede." ”

No wonder the monk is so arrogant, the gold dust that has not faded for thirty years is almost equivalent to the gold-plating technology of later generations, Yang Zhi can't help but go back and watch again, Yang Zhi doesn't believe that the Great Song Dynasty has such superb technology now, Yang Zhi thinks more about whether this sculpture is metal. It is unlikely that pure gold will be found by the monks in the temple, but if it is alloyed, it may be considered by the monks to be copper or iron, which is valuable and will not be easily damaged.

The monk followed behind Yang Zhi, seemed to know Yang Zhi's thoughts, and explained: "The donor doesn't know, this sculpture is wood, but not our side of the wood, according to the predecessors, the wood itself is soaked in oil is gold, the gold powder was immediately absorbed by the wood after being painted, and the gold dust was painted ten times before the color was stabilized." ”

Ten times of gold dust, that is, it can hit a thin gold leaf, but Yang Zhi didn't see the characteristics of this kind of gold skin on the surface just now, Yang Zhi stopped abruptly and asked: "Is your temple not allowing people to touch the statue of the Dragon King?"

Yang Zhi is reminded of the legendary golden tung tree, it is said that this kind of tung tree only grows in the gold mine, and the wood is mixed with a large number of gold ore impurities, so it looks golden, and the wood itself has strong adsorption, very much like the Zhike monk said; ”

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