The Temple of Azure Clouds lies at the foot of the Western Hills. Its landmark the Diamond Throne Pagoda can be seen towering amidst green trees from a far distance.
The Temple was first built in 1366 before the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty. Under the Ming two powerful eunuchs, Yu Jing and Wei Zhongxian, had it expanded at various periods, trying to make it their burial ground, but they didn't succeed. In 1748 during the Qing Dynasty, large-scale construction work was done. The Hall of Arhats designed after the Jingci Monastery in Hangzhou and the Diamond Throne Pagoda at the rear of the temple were built in that period. Before liberation, the buildings in the temple were quite rundown. Since 1954, they have been renovated and painted anew, and Sun Yat-sen Memoriai Hall was rebuilt to pay tribute to this great pioneer of the Chinese revolution.
Entering the gate you can see the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower, one on each side.
Wei Zhongxian cleverly rose to power by obtaining a position as purveyor of food to the concubine of Emperor Wanli's son, and later, in the 1620s, dominated the court life of Wanli's grandson. At the peak of his influence, Wei Zhongxian was able to publish historical works bilittling his bureaucratic enemies, and to order that temples in his honour be erected all across China.
The Temple Gate
Inside the gate there used to be two statues of gate guardians known to Chinese as the two Generals, "Heng and Ha."
Hall of Heavenly Kings
The Hall now contains a bronze statue of Maitreya Buddha, a piece of Ming Dynasty work. In the hall, there used to be four statues of the Heavenly Kings. They were destroyed in the 1920s by the warlords. But in the gateway leading to the Hall of Arhats, visitors can still see another four statues of the Heavenly Kings. The courtyard has an ancient bodhi tree, pines and gingkoes and two stone pillars with Buddhist inscriptions. Inside the hall are brightly painted clay figures, which tell the story of Xuanzang, a famous Tang Dynasty monk, on a pilgrimage to the West in search of Buddhist sutras.