Tiantai An, Buddhist shrine hall in Wangqu Village, Pingshun County, China
Tiantai An is a small Buddhist shrine in Wangqu Village, Pingshun County, Shanxi. Only the main hall and a weathered Tang stele remain. The hall stands on a stone platform about 1 m high, measures roughly 7.15 by 7.12 m, has three bays and four rafters, and is topped by a single-eave hip-and-gable roof.
Long dated to 907 as a Tang building, Tiantai An was re-dated to the Later Tang after ink inscriptions were found during the 2014 restoration: one records construction in the fourth year of Tiancheng (929), another work in the fourth year of Changxing (933). The same inscriptions note repairs under the Jin, Ming and in 1670. It was listed as a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level in 1988.
The name Tiantai An refers to the Tiantai school of Buddhism, though no community of monks is documented there today; only the main hall and a weathered Tang stele remain. The hall's interior is dominated by its exposed four-rafter beam frame, and the roof ridge ornaments were replaced in the Jin dynasty.
The hall stands on a stone platform about one metre high in the western part of Wangqu Village, Beidanche Township, Pingshun County. Only the main hall and one weathered Tang stele remain, so the visit is short; the hall is small, roughly 7 metres square. The site is a national protected monument, and no guided tours are documented.
The hall's corner brackets use a single-bracket "doukou tiao" form, with the inner beam extending outward to carry the eaves purlin, a simple system studied as an early stage in bracket-set evolution. Two small stone lions once stood at the east and west wall corners under the front eaves; both were stolen in recent years.
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