Hanging Temple (Xuankong Si) Heng Shan (Bei Yue), Shanxi Heng
Shan is one of five sacred Daoist mountains, climbed by emperors
to seek blessings from the time of Qin Shi Huang onwards. The
spectacular Hanging Temple was first built by the Northern Wei,
although its present structures only date from the Qing Dynasty.
The long poles, that seem to prop up its buildings, are more for
visual effect. The temple is actually cut into the side of the
rock, with additional support from cantilevered floor beams that
have been socketed into the cliff (closeup). Xuankong is
religiously eclectic. Of the three major halls seen here, the
leftmost is Buddhist, the middle is Daoist, and the rightmost is
Confucian.