Gaoping Tiefo Temple

Located in Tiexi Temple Lane, Shangximen Street, Mixi Village, Mishan Town, Gaoping City, Jincheng City, Shanxi Province. The year of establishment is unknown. The inscription on the bluestone door pier of the main hall shows that the main hall was built on July 13, the seventh year of Dading in the Jin Dynasty (1168 AD) and was rebuilt. It was rebuilt again in the first year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (1522 AD), and in the tenth year of Jiajing (1531 AD), the Shuilu Hall, the Ten Kings Hall and several residences were added. The architectural layout is from north to south, with a single courtyard. The main hall is at the north end of the courtyard axis, and the Heavenly King Hall is at the south end. There are three side halls on the west side of the main hall, and there are five meditation rooms in the courtyard. The main hall preserves a complete group of Buddhist colored sculptures. There are 27 existing statues. According to the order of the twenty-four heavens, the four heavenly kings stand at the four corners. At the southernmost end, Yang Jian (Zhaohui Tian) and Guan Yu (Chongning Tian) stand, which is quite characteristic of the southeast of Jin. These colored sculptures use a large amount of iron wire and iron wire, presenting a unique sculpting technique of "using iron as bone and iron as shape", with a unique style. On October 7, 2019, Gaoping Tiefo Temple was selected as the eighth batch of national key cultural relics protection units.