Bamboo Temple

Bamboo Temple is located in Yu'an Mountains in the Northwest of Kunming, about 7 Kilometers away from the center of the city. Around the temple are mountains covered with trees everywhere, and at the gate of the temple stand many very tall cypress trees which were planted in ancient times. The streams and brooks are flowing through the woods and valley, making a beautiful natural sound. At the back of the temple, a great deal of bamboo is so green as if there were some dew-drops on its leaves. That is the so-called Qiongzhu--a kind of bamboo.

There is an interesting story about the name of the temple. It is said that in the Tang Dynasty two brothers were huntung at the edge of Dianchi lake. Suddenly, they found a rhinoceros.The two brothers began to chase the animal, running after it towards Yu'an Mountains. To their surprise, the rhinocerous vanished into the woods. They searched for the animals carefully. But they couldn't found it. However, they found a few strange-looking monks sitting on the ground. As soon as the two brothers came up to these monks, there was nothing but bamboo there. They felt very curious and tried to pull the bamboo out. But thet failed. The next day, the two brothers went along and found that there was bamboo everywhere. So they look that as a very important sign from Buddha. Laker, they decided to set up a temple there. Hence the name, Qiongzhu Temple, that is, Bamboo Temple. Obviously, it is nothing more than a legend, of course, in fact, Bamboo Temple was first built in the Song Dynasty, and was burnt down in 1419 in the Ming Dynasty. Later, the temple was rebulit and renovated several times.