Zhenru Temple | The oldest house in Shanghai is here

💢 Traditional Chinese architecture is mostly wooden structures, which are not easy to preserve. So where is the oldest house in Shanghai currently located? The answer is: the Mahavira Hall of Zhenru Temple. 🌟 Temple Highlights 🔶 The Mahavira Hall of Zhenru Temple is the main building of the temple, built in the seventh year of the Yuan Dynasty's Zhiyuan era (1320), by the monk Miaoxin. It is the only well-preserved Yuan Dynasty Buddhist hall in the Shanghai area. ✅ The inscription on the bottom of the main beam of the hall reads 'Constructed on the twenty-first day of the fourth month of the seventh year of the Zhiyuan era of the Great Yuan, on the day of Gengshen and the hour of Xun,' which accurately records the time of construction. ✅ The hall has 16 wooden columns, ten of which are cypress and six are fir. It is said that the foundation of each column is made of layers of loess and iron slag, with a width of 1.8 meters, a length of 3 meters, and a depth of 1.8 to 2 meters. 💢 There are very few surviving Yuan Dynasty buildings in the Jiangnan region, apart from Zhenru Temple, there are only three other places: the Sanqing Hall in Suzhou, the Xuanyuan Palace in Wuxian County, and the Tianning Temple in Jinhua. ✅ The Mahavira Hall was not very large when it was first built, but due to the thriving incense offerings, a market appeared around the temple, and many side halls and Buddhist pavilions were expanded around the Mahavira Hall, gradually forming a large temple complex. During the Taiping Rebellion in the tenth year of the Xianfeng era (1860), most of the buildings were destroyed except for the Mahavira Hall. Subsequent dynasties have repaired it many times. ✅ In 1991, it was restored again, forming the current temple complex. 🔶 In 1999, the Zhenru Pagoda was built to the north, becoming a landmark of the Zhenru area. ✅ The pagoda is fifty-three meters high, with nine floors, plus an underground palace and a mezzanine on the first floor, totaling eleven floors. The underground palace enshrines the true relics of Sakyamuni. ✅ Around the pagoda, there is a circle of prayer wheels, which spin lightly and spectacularly when touched. 🌲 Inside the temple, there is an ancient ginkgo tree, said to have been planted during the Yuan Dynasty, and is over 700 years old. Due to a lightning strike, the tree is hollow, with dark bark, and its old branches twist and turn, nestled among the Buddhist temples. ✨✨ Walking into Zhenru Temple, with its green tiles, gray bricks, white walls, and wooden structures in the style of ancient architecture, the color scheme is simple, without the splendid halls and dazzling painted beams and columns, bringing a sense of tranquility and peace of mind. 📝 Note tips: ❗️Currently, the Buddhist halls on the east and west sides of the temple are under protective repair, and the central hall is open to the public, and the temple is open as usual. 📍 Detailed address: No. 399 Lanxi Road, Putuo District 🚉 Transportation: 🚇 Subway lines 11/14 Zhenru Station, exit 7, 10 minutes walk. 🎫 Ticket: 10 yuan per person 🕐 Opening hours: 6:00—16:00 (ticket sales stop at 16:00), the temple opens half an hour earlier during the incense period.