Introduction

Baoguo Temple, a famous thousand-year-old temple, is located on a 28.8 acre area of Mount Lingshan, fifteen km from Ningbo. It is one of the oldest well-preserved wooden Buddhist buildings in the Yangtze region. The temple was firstly built in the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 AD) and rebuilt and expanded in later dynasties. It is a traditional Mahayana Buddhist temple with a unique and impressive design style.

It is renowned for its Main Hall, which was made from wood and rebuilt in 1013 during the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127). The distinctive construction style of the Main Hall is of great importance to the country's architectural research. The whole construction was built with wooden girders, pillars and columns without using a single nail. The most confusing thing is that no birds nestle there, no insect live in the hall, and the hall is always free of dust, which is still an unsolved problem for scientists and architects.

The temple also contains columns from the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), halls and towers constructed in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Today the temple is a tourist attraction and also functions as a museum where various exhibitions are held. There are seventeen important cultural relic exhibition halls open to the public, including the Buddha Statues, Bronze Utensils and Brick and Stone Sculptures.

In March 1961, the Baoguo Temple was added into the first national units of ancient relic protection by the State Council because of its immense values to historians, artists and scientists. By visiting this area, tourists have the opportunity to learn more detailed information about buildings from the Tang Dynasty (618-907AD) to the Republic of China era.