Background In the early twentieth century, Japanese architectural historians, notably
Sekino Tadashi, surveyed historic buildings across China and concluded that no timber-framed structures from the Tang dynasty (618–907) survived on Chinese soil; to see authentic Tang-era wooden architecture, one would have to visit
Nara,
Japan. This claim became a direct impetus for the work of the Society for Research in Chinese Architecture, founded in
Beiping in 1930. Among its leading members were the architect
Liang Sicheng and his wife, the architect and poet
Lin Huiyin. From 1932 to 1937, Liang and his colleagues conducted fieldwork across northern China, surveying hundreds of ancient structures, but no definitively Tang-dynasty timber building had been identified.
The Dunhuang clue The critical lead came from a photograph. While studying images taken by the French sinologist
Paul Pelliot at the
Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, Liang noticed a monumental mural on the west wall of Cave 61. Known as the "Map of Mount Wutai", the painting, approximately 13.4 meters wide, depicted the entire Mount Wutai landscape in extraordinary detail, identifying dozens of monasteries by name. Prominently labelled was "The Great Foguang Temple". The mural dated to the Five Dynasties period (tenth century) but depicted late-Tang conditions. Liang cross-referenced this with Chinese historical sources recording that Foguang Temple had been destroyed during
Emperor Wuzong's suppression of Buddhism in 845, then rebuilt in 857. He reasoned that if the main hall dated to 857 and the site had since fallen into obscurity, the Tang-dynasty structure might still survive.
The 1937 expedition In late June 1937, a team of four, Liang Sicheng, Lin Huiyin,
Mo Zongjiang, and
Ji Yutang, departed from Wutai county seat and headed northeast toward Doucun by mule. In his account, Liang described the journey as winding along precipitous cliff-edge paths through secluded and beautiful mountain scenery. At dusk, the team arrived at a temple nestled against a hillside about five kilometres from Doucun, facing west toward an open valley with mountains on three sides. This was Foguang Temple. Liang later recalled that upon entering the Dongda Hall, spanning seven bays and appearing even more magnificent in the dim light, the team was overcome with astonishment and joy, their long-held conviction that Tang-era timber buildings must survive in China had at last found tangible proof. The hall's structural features, massive bracket sets, the proportions of its columns, and its floor plan, were consistent with Tang-dynasty construction, but visual assessment alone could not establish a precise date. Chinese builders traditionally recorded construction dates in ink on the ridge purlin; however, when the team climbed into the roof structure, they found no such inscription there.The breakthrough came on July 5, 1937. Working in the dim upper reaches of the hall, the team discovered faint ink writing on the underside of a large structural beam. Among the partially obscured characters, they deciphered: "Donor of the Buddha Hall: the female lay disciple Ning Gongyu, who made offerings from the capital". Lin then examined a stone dharani pillar standing in the courtyard. On it she found the same name, Ning Gongyu, identified as the hall's donor, together with the date, the eleventh year of the Dazhong era, corresponding to 857 CE. The beam inscription and the pillar inscription corroborated each other, establishing the hall's construction in 857 during the Tang dynasty. Liang wrote of the Dongda Hall that it was not merely the sole Tang-dynasty timber-framed hall discovered in the society's years of fieldwork, but the foremost treasure among China's ancient buildings, uniquely preserving four categories of Tang-era relics in a single structure, architecture, polychrome sculpture, mural painting, and calligraphic inscription, which he termed the "Four Supremacies". Among the 35 Tang-dynasty clay sculptures on the altar platform are two portrait statues of historical figures: the hall's patron Ning and the monk Yuancheng. These are among the earliest surviving realistic portrait sculptures in Chinese Buddhist art. The team completed their survey in early July 1937. Days later, on July 7, the
Marco Polo Bridge Incident marked the beginning of the
Second Sino-Japanese War. Liang's findings were published in the *Bulletin of the Society for Research in Chinese Architecture. ==Architecture==