GREAT BELL MUSEUM

Visit

In the courtyard of the temple, there is an interesting collection of bells of all sizes and different times, including a date of the Yuan dynasty. In the heart of its last pavilion, the temple houses China's biggest bell: 6.75 m height, 3.3 m in diameter and 46.5 tons. This imposing bell is also called Yongle, the name of Emperor Ming who made her sink over 600 years ago in memory of the generals and fallen soldiers during his expedition to northern China. With the erection of the temple in 1733, the bell was moved from the foundry: without modern transport techniques, a trench was excavated along the path, filled with water and, in winter, the bell placed on a luge and dragged to the temple along the icy path. Another round of strength: Seventeen Buddhist texts, 223,000 characters fully cover the inner and outer surfaces of the bell and would be the work, said, of the famous Shen du calligrapher. It is the doctrine of the Huayuan School (or school of the Guireland of Flowers) that, as any creature being a manifestation of dharma (cosmic principle), the smallest dust particle can contain the quintessence of the spirit of Buddha, and that, only observation of things of nature allowing for to reach their essence, therefore, it is not necessary to resort to magic, as the Tantric Buddhism advocates. In 1986, the temple of the Grande Cloche was transformed into a museum of the Cloche with more than 31 bells from the song period (1126-1279) at the end of the Qing (1644-1911). A history of techniques used for the construction of bells is also presented. Despite its 600 years, the Yongle Bell has no traces of rust, and its inscriptions are as fresh and legible as if they had been recently traced. When you hit it, it lasts two minutes, with such power that you can hear it 20 kilometers on the round. It intrigues historians, archeologists and scientists, experts in dynamic and metallurgy acoustics, and recently the Institute of Acoustics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted research at which it appeared that its highest frequency was 860 hertz and its lowest 22 hertz, thanks to its perfectly balanced report components: 80.54% copper, 1.12% lead plus zinc, magnesium, iron, etc.