【正文】 r sightseers from Japan because legend has it that once the monk Shide landed in Japan and spread both Buddhism and Chinese culture there.
The ancient temple faces the worldrenowned Grand Canal with both the Maple Bridge and the Jiangcun Bridge flying over the tributary of it. Numerous classical buildings inside the temple are imposing and trees growing luxuriantly. Passing the entrance hall, visitors can mand a nice view of the Mahavira Hall, the 500 Arhats Hall, the Sutrastoring Building, the Bell Tower, the Universal Illumination Pagoda, the Stela Gallery, many other chambers and mansions as well as beautiful garden courts.
It is worth mentioning that in the center of the Mahavira Hall sits Buddha Sakyamuni with two attendant Bodhisattvas standing piously at the both sides, who are Sakyamuni’s first generation disciples. The younger one is named Ananha and the elder one is called Kasyapa. And the gilt Eighteen Arhats are installed alongside the side walls. Shown in the right rear corner of the hall is a bronze bell hung on a wooden stand. This is a Japanese bell which Yamada Kanzang, a friendly Japanese personage, cast and sent to Suzhou’s Hanshan Temple in 1905, symbolizing the cultural exchange between China and Japan in history.
Near the bell ate two stelae, or stone tablets, set in the white walls, one displays the monk Hanshan and the other portrays both Hanshan and Shide who are vivid and full of fun, clapping and laughing like real persons.
Located behind the Mahavira Hall is the Sutrastoring Building, at the side of which lies the hexagonal Bell Tower. On its second floor hangs an enormous iron bell cast in 1906, . in the 32nd year of the reign of Emperor Guanxu. This is a
very important bell because a flourishing gathering can be seen annually on the eve of New Year’s Day when tourists from all over the world flock inside and outside the temple and await the ing of the zero hour of the New Year by listening to the sound of this Qing Dynasty Bell struck 108 times by the abbot standing on the second floor of the Bell Tower.
Since December 31st, 1979 there have been 27 such events known as the Suzhou Hanshan Temple’s New Year listeningto theSoundofBell Activity. Now the temple looks forward to the 37th such an activity which will fall on December 31st, 2020.
Another attraction of the temple is the poem stelae bearing the inscription of the abovementioned Zhang Ji’s poem in the Tang, which goes:
Moonfall. Crow cry in a sky full of frost.
Maple bridge. Lamps of fishermen doze off in the groom.
Outside Old Soochow City lies Hanshan Temple.
At midnight, the sound of its bell reaches my boat.
Up to now there are totally ten noted personages who wrote this poem by using the Chinese writing brush and had their own handwriting engraved