The Temple of Tiankong Xiaojie
#25 of Miscellany
I was making a list of writing prompts, and this idea struck me as something I wanted to write, so I did.
There
are few legends remaining today about the order of monks who built and watched
over the Temple of Tiankong Xiaojie. The temple itself has been relegated to the position of a mere fictional
fantasy, said to be thought up by those who wished to believe in matters of the
supernatural. The general location is known as to where it
was said to have been situated, and the few stories that remain tell of how
starkly contrasting its appearance was in its overall construction. There are a
few old sketches that are claimed to depict the temple, but as these offer
dissimilar views they are all dismissed as fraudulent, mislabeled or done only
on accounts from after its destruction. So to sum it up, outside of the written
descriptions, the manner of its construction are still up for debate. The
temple was constructed back in the early days of the Chinese Empire. Those who
toiled to raise it did so without interference from the ruling powers, for the
region they chose was considered to be cursed ground. As no one else wished to
risk the anger of the gods, the devotees were left to do as they felt compelled
to do. The location was a long, slightly irregular
plateau in the mountains of Shaanxi Province. It was built to take advantage of
the natural healing spring that erupted from a crevice in the top. The local
villagers only came to the site when they were desperate, but after the temple
was constructed, people flocked to it, feeling that the monks had managed to
lift any curse that had been placed upon it. The
curse in question was attributed to the ancient magician Da Yintang. It was
said that he was slain on the top of the mountain during a great battle, during
which the entire peak was torn asunder and thrown to the valley below. But in
his defeat he brought down his foe, leaving behind a landscape forever torn and
decimated. Of
course this was not true, for the mountain soon healed itself along a time
scale fit for the earth, not for the lives of mere men. Trees eventually grew,
flowers bloomed and the birds came back to nest. Over the passage of the many years,
memories of the event faded, except for faint recollections of demons and
sprites that hid in the rocks, ready to catch unwary travelers in their wicked snares.
So people found it easier to avoid the plateau than to brave it. And
then came the monks. The
entire temple took four decades to complete. It was soon a jewel on the
mountaintop, though even then the stories say the true beauty was inside. The
monks were humble, and while they might carve the solid stone into likenesses
of demons, dragons and warrior mages, they abstained from using gold, silver,
gems or even paint on the outside of their sanctuary. To them, real beauty lay on
the inside of everything in the world, from the crystals found in caves to the
spirituality found in the souls of men. To that end, the inside of their temple
was unlike any before or since. Even emperors came to take in the lavish
interior, and many tried in vain to copy the artful tiles, statues and
sculptures. At
the heart of the complex was the Pool of Healing. What the locals had known, in
their dim knowledge of their surroundings, was that the water that bubbled up
from the depths on the mountain could heal disease and injury. It was most
effective if drunk right away, but in the past few folks spared the time to
linger on the mountain, and the sick and injured could rarely travel to its
top. And yet, its properties had become well known in the region. With the
temple now there to surround and contain its waters, and a path up the mountain
to it, the region was soon busy with pilgrims of all shapes and sizes. From
the outside, the temple appeared to be very old, even in its earliest days, for
the stone soon weathered and was covered in mosses and lichens. Without the
typical paint or gilt, it looked well beyond its years. But when a visitor stepped
inside, they were greeted with a totally different appearance. The pool of
healing was very long, much like a water lily pond in the garden of the
emperor. From end to end you could fit in two hundred people, and across
another forty. The pool was shallow, being at best three feet deep. In the
center was the great chasm; the deep crevice from which the waters flowed. They
did not flow with great force, but they did flow constantly. It was here that
the power of it was the strongest. The
decree of the monk's was that the temple was meant for all, but at times the
rich and powerful tried to make it their own. Each time they came with armed
troops. They were healed of whatever disease afflicted them and they left again.
It was one of the few places in China where total peace reigned always. Even the
most hostile of the regional lords would come away with new insight and
inspiration. Not
everyone was allowed into the center. Only the most very ill; those close to dying
were placed there by the monks. It was as though the full healing of the waters
there was painful, for people placed in there were said to thrash about as if
in pain. This might go on for hours and they might even vanish into the depths,
but when it was over, the monks collected them and laid them out on the floor.
When they awoke, they were whole again, but with no memory of their encounter
with the water. No one
asked too many questions. Answers weren't always productive. Even the Chinese knew
better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.To the
first time visitor, the temple interior was equal to any palace belonging to
the emperor or any regional governor. While the outside was drab and equal to
the color of the landscape, inside the colors lit up the interior like the magically
captured rays of the rainbow. The floor surrounding the pool was natural stone,
worn smooth over the centuries by the passage of so many supplicants. So too were the pillars which were constantly repainted
to match the myriad of hues that reflected up from the bottom of the pool. Many
kissed the carved figures on them, but the monks calmly reapplied the pigments
when the original layer was gone.In its
later years, there was much speculation how the early monks had managed to do a
few of the more remarkable things that had been accomplished, from the highly
realistic carvings of the dragons that wound around the stone columns to the
brightly colored tiles that lined the bottom of the pool. These tiles were
unlike any before or since seen in China. They had an ethereal look to them,
their colors ranging the spectrum of the color palate; from the pale blues of
the early morning sky to the vibrant colors of the evening sunset. They covered
the bottom in a glimmering display of color, including those that custom fit
around the opening of the spring, where their color faded into the hues of the
rose before the darkness hid the source of the waters.That
portion of the pool was somewhat walled off to keep the least ill of the
patrons from making liberal use of it. Even the dignitaries had to be content with
mingling with the commoners in the main pool. But as everyone got what they
came for, there was no arguing or fighting, and for many centuries all who came
and left the temple did so in peace and tranquility.For those
who wished to stay and learn the ways of the monks, there were classes in all
of the disciplines, not the least of which was history. It was they who had gathered
the few oral recollections that had been passed down from mouth to mouth
concerning the legend of the mountain.
That was why the temple was dedicated to the Lady of the Air. It was she
that the magician Da Yintang is said to have battled so long ago until the landscape
was purportedly decimated by his savage use of magic. Locals spoke of a
thousand year sleep put upon the land, but as the land was obviously living and
vibrant, such legends were soon forgotten.There was
even an altar dedicated to the long lost mage, said to be filled with his long
dead bones. As the monks never opened it for viewing and as no one else ever
tried to open it, it is hard to say if it was a clever ploy to attract more
converts, or if there was really something inside it. Even if there was, it was
not unknown for there to be nothing more than animal bones inside many a holy sepulcher.In this
enlightened age of course no one believed in magicians and their kin. Such
power was only for the gods to use, and even they used it wantonly; by making
great storms and shaking the ground to amuse themselves when they were bored with
watching over humanity. Such things occurred all over China, but here in
Shaanxi Province peace reigned supreme. One did best to simply venerate the
gods, placate them when necessary, and whenever possible, to ignore them.
Nothing slept that didn't eventually wake and upheaval of any sort was viewed
as a bad omen.So over the
centuries, even the monks taught the earlier lessons only as fables, fit for
the ears of children and the ignorant. This was after all China, home to
legends regarding anything and everything, from river fish to dragon whiskers
and water demons. The healing was the only thing that was real, and as such,
was the only thing that mattered.Over the
centuries the pool attracted people from all across the country and though it
healed all who bathed in it, the one thing it did not do was grant immortality.
Old age was not a disease, and thus it was unaffected by the waters. While this
angered many a foolish lord, in the end he and his anger were often buried into
the earth to be forgotten by the passing ages. The earth itself did not intend
to live forever, but rather cycled through its phases with as much dignity and
poise as the centuries would allow it.And so life
came and went. Many had forgotten even the meaning of the name of the
protectress of the temple. It was so ingrained in their minds that all it had
come to mean was the healing waters and nothing more. And yet, there were always indications that
things were not what they seemed at this holiest of temples. So it came to pass
one evening that the ancestral people of Qin got a reminder that where there
lies a legend, so therein lies at least a kernel of truth. The date is
still remembered to this day even if the actual cause of the disaster is not. It
occurred on February 2, 1556. Reports as studied and deciphered in modern times
list the cause as a massive earthquake, but it was no normal, naturally occurring
disaster. The scope of it was massive, and perhaps accounts for the greatest
human death toll from any such happening in the history of mankind. A similar
thing had happened a millennia before and it had happened on the exact same
spot.Precisely a
thousand years to the minute from this date in fact.The
magician Da Yinyang had expended his magic bringing to earth the elemental sky
dragon known as Yinglong. Only it was not Yinglong, but a female counterpart
sent in his place. And she had done battle in his stead, in the end losing in a
mighty upset. In her mortal form she had been struck down, her body crashing
against a mountain, her back embedded into the stone, leaving her multihued belly
exposed to the sky for her lover to mourn over.But one
does not simply kill a dragon.Over time
the vegetation grew, for her essence was water, and water in any form was
life-giving and a vital liquid for all life. And so too grew the dirt from
which these plants grew, so soon nothing could be seen of the poor dragon but
the single spring that burst forth from her body. For she was not dead, but
merely paralyzed; held in place and doomed to sleep for a thousand years.And now the
thousand year spell had expired. She had not merely awoken; she had been
blasted from the rocky bed with the force of a thousand back-lashed spells
wrapped into one. For the magician in all his wise and well-meaning magical ministrations
had failed to look to the future. He had thought that so many years into the future
the world would be dead. And yet it wasn't. And so in a momentous blast that
had the combined energy of a giant meteor striking the earth, Tiankong Xiaojie escaped back
into the heavens.She had
missed her consort so. While sleep might be the word some of the uninformed used
to describe her imprisonment, the fact was she was awake the entire time. The
mind of a dragon is something hard to tame, much less subdue to unconsciousness.
All the while she had felt longings and yearnings, and her physical body found
that it had needs not able to be satisfied unless her counterparts were to come
to earth to relieve them for her.That was
the case for a few centuries until her mind caught one little human and gave
him the idea of building a temple on top of her prone form. After all, she was
the mountain now though hidden beneath layers of accumulated dirt, bushes and
trees. And so he gathered others and eventually the surface of her belly was
teaming with life. Her fluids were pooled, and by her very nature the people
who touched them left her cured of their diseases. But the ones that got put
straight into her... private area, now they were perfect for scratching the itches
that no one knew she had. If not for that, she might have gone insane.No one
could tell anyone else about what they had endured for their cure if they couldn't
remember, so she blanked their minds while her body used them to rub the spot
that was so persistently in need of attention. It was far from ideal, but as
she saw no other way of dealing with the problem, she came up with one that was
beneficial for all those concerned.In the end
the spell broke, expelling her from her earthly prison back into the heavens.
She was saddened by the destruction it caused, but as she had never seen
herself as a villain, she could only shed tears of grief at the foolishness of
a single human magician from so long ago. The rain came down in sheets, which
did nothing to makes matters on the ground any easier for the survivors of the momentous
disaster. In this she could not control her emotions, so long had they been
bottled up inside her.And so
ended the temple of the Lady of the Air and much of the surrounding region with
it. Even the mountain upon which it had been built had been leveled to the
ground, blocking the nearby river and causing a catastrophic flood during the
three day storm that followed.And so this
should go as a lesson to all those who hold power. Choose your battles wisely
and your enemies with even greater wisdom. The sky may rain, and lighting may
strike, but the clouds bring life and as such the bad comes also with great good.
To try to tame or control nature in any of its forms is foolish, for all things
come in the quantities that are needed, when they are needed. If the rains do
not come, there is a reason and it is one you must accept and adapt to, for
trying to fix that which is far greater than yourself will always end in
disaster.