Located outside the Zhonghua Gate, the Grand Bao’en Temple Heritage Park is adjacent to the outer Qinhuai River in the north and the Rain Flower Terrace in the south, borders on the “1865 Park” in the east and reaches the Yuhua Road in the west. The park is one of the areas with the most concentrated historical and cultural resources in Nanjing.
The Grand Bao’en Temple was originally built over 1,700 years ago, known as the first temple in south China. Then, Buddhism began to prevail in south China. As the second Buddhist temple on Chinese land, it was the Buddhist center in ancient and modern China. In the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), navigator Zheng He presided over the construction of the Grand Bao’en Temple. About 100,000 workers were enlisted for the construction, lasting for 17 years. Emperor Yongle granted the name “Grand Bao’en Temple” and the title “Number One Pagoda”. In the subsequent four hundred years, the glass pagoda of the temple was the most distinctive landmark building in Nanjing, hailed by Western Sinologists as one of the “world’s seven wonders in the middle ancient times” comparable to the Colosseum in Rome. It was imitated by western countries as a Chinese architectural model.
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