Creating the Identity of Guilin Spiritual Landscape: Case study on Xi Qinglin temple

Abstract

Xi Qinglin temple in Guilin was a Chinese Buddhist temple built circa 6th century A.D. (Tang Dynasty). This grand scale temple was a well-known place of worship in ancient China. There is a less of written records about Xi Qinglin temple. Yet, there is no record of why the temple was destroyed. Moreover, a number of existing Buddhist cave statues around the temple ruins is different from the sculptures of the Buddha statues in North China, indicating that Buddhism had crossed the Indian Ocean and passed through Southeast Asia to South China.

Xi Qinglin temple once had an important status in Guilin as a Chinese Buddhism’s place of worship. In fact, Guilin government has carried out studies of archaeological sites around Xi Qinglin temple leading to the discovery of archaeological and historical evidences that support the value and significance of Xi Qinglin temple and its rebuilding.

This thesis has three interlinked components:

1. In the absence of historical recordsI have compiled existing textual fragments and data on Tang Dynasty’s architecture to put together a collaged and superimposed image of the past and present landscape of Xi Qinglin temple. I will explore how the concept of the intangible and the tangible in Chinese Buddhism becomes the foundation of Buddhist spiritual landscapes in China.

2. In this thesis I will argue for the need to drive the effort of to rebuild an identity of Guilin spiritual places to respond to the current decline of Chinese Buddhism. Therefore, the research framework of the thesis consists of four parts: the rebuilding, the local identity, the tangible, and the intangible. Rethinking the "lost identity“ of Chinese Buddhist temple landscape from the comparative perspectives of Pure Land Buddhism and Zen Buddhism I will discussthe issue of the development of the Buddhist temple in contemporary era. I will emphasize the importance of local identity experience, and providea substantial research evidence for the rebuilding Xi Qinglin Temple in Guilin.

3.Based on the above research, I created the research method and introduced it into the design experiment. The landscape image of Guilin Karst topography and the regional minority culture was incorporated into the design of Guilin’s Xi Qinglin Temple, creating the identity of the spiritual landscape of Guilin.

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