The Beamless Brick Hall is the second hall of Wannian Temple and is also known as the Samantabhadra Hall. This hall is entirely built with bricks, without a single piece of wood, pillar or tile. It is magnificent and has a distinct ancient Indian architectural style. Its design concept is derived from the ancient people’s view of the universe that the sky is round and the earth is square.
It was built in the 28th year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty (1600 AD). It was built by Emperor Wanli to celebrate his mother’s birthday.
The entire hall is 17.12 meters high, 15.79 meters wide and 16.06 meters deep. The upper part is a semi-circular hollow domed roof, and the lower part is a square base, resembling a yurt, symbolizing the round sky and the square earth.
The walls, roof, and even the lintels, brackets and window lattices of the hall are all made of bricks. The hall has double eaves and carved eaves. The surrounding windows are exquisitely decorated. On the back of the door, there are engraved the topographical features of all Sichuan mountains and rivers, the Yunzhan Ancient Road and the Jianshan Pass, as well as the land and water routes, etc., which are extremely beautiful.
On the four walls inside the hall, there are thousands of Buddha statues. There are 24 niches in the lower part of the inner wall. Each niche contains an iron-cast Buddha statue. There are also horizontal niche paths built in the middle and upper parts of the inner wall, which also house many small Buddha statues.
On the domed roof of the hall, there are paintings of four flying fairies, each holding a pipa, a konghou, a lusheng and a flute respectively. The images are vivid and the colors are bright.
At the four corners and the center of the roof, there are five white pagodas. The one in the middle is larger, and the ones at the four corners are smaller. The four corners of the roof are also decorated with auspicious animals such as lions, elephants and deer.
Some people say that if the Beamless Brick Hall is regarded as a huge tower base, then the entire shape of the Beamless Brick Hall is a huge Vajrasana Pagoda.
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