Shengyou Temple
2 min readThe Shengyou Temple is located in a place about 2km from the northwest of Zhaosu County of today’s Kazak Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang，and it is one of the four best preserved Tibetan Buddhist temples in Xinjiang.With magnificent structure and solemn atmosphere，the Shengyou Temple is the place for Mongolian herdsmen in this area to pray for god.
The Shengyou Temple was built in 1889.There are eight buildings existing now，the area is 2，000m²，and the temple occupies hundreds of acres of land.The Shengyou Temple sits north to south，and its distribution is strict.A screen wall facing the gate of the temple，the temple gate，the front hall，the main hall and the rear hall are arrayed along the central axis in sequence.The side halls with hard peaks are respectively located in the east and west，and an east building and a west building are corresponding to the two side halls.In the courtyard，there is also a two-layer two-eave pavilion with its plane being octagonal.
The main shrine hall is the master building of this ancient temple.The plane of the hall is square，and there are seven rooms in the hall.The second layer is a hipped gable roof with eaves being deep and roof truss being high.The roof is rather steep.Corbel brackets below the eaves are provided with multiple layers of eave purlin.Square columns of girders are painted with red，yellow，gold，orange，purple and blue and so on.The gate characterized by gelled patterning and gilding looks magnificent.The corridor outside the hall is overwritten with cloud dragons，the Eight Diagrams，phoenixes，Chinese unicorns，strong lions，fierce tigers，golden deer and macaques and so on.The colors are bright and the lines are smooth.A horizontal inscribed board carved with Chinese characters”Shengyou Temple Built under Imperial Order”was once hung on the gate of the hall.Wall scripts are written in the hall，and valances and banners are hung in the hall.Both the script writing and the embroidery are exquisite and have rich Tibetan Buddhist color.The wall paintings and corridor paintings give first place to the element of central China style，such as legends，historical stories，exotic flowers and rare herbs.
The Shengyou Temple is the temple combining the Tibetan style with the Han style.And now，it is the key cultural relic protection unit in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
