Bamboo Temple

Bamboo Temple is located in Yu'an Mountains in the Northwest of Kunming , about 7 Kilometers away from the center of the city . Around the temple are mountains covered with trees everywhere , and at the gate of the temple stand many very tall cypress trees which were planted in ancient times . The streams and brooks are flowing through the woods and valley , making a beautiful natural sound. At the back of the temple , a great deal of bamboo is so green as if there were some dew-drops on its leaves . That is the so-called Qiongzhu--a kind of bamboo . 

There is an interesting story about the name of the temple . It is said that in the Tang Dynasty two brothers were hunting at the edge of Dianchi lake . Suddenly , they found a rhinoceros .The two brothers began to chase the animal , running after it towards.

Yu'an Mountains . To their surprise , the rhinocerous vanished into the woods . They searched for the animals carefully . But they couldn't found it . However , they found a few strange-looking monks sitting on the ground . As soon as the two brothers came up to these monks , there was nothing but bamboo there . They felt very curious and tried to pull the bamboo out . But that failed . The next day , the two brothers went along and found that there was bamboo everywhere . So they look that as a very important sign from Buddha . Later , they decided to set up a temple there . Hence the name , Qiongzhu Temple , that is , Bamboo Temple . Obviously , it is nothing more than a legend, of course , in fact , Bamboo Temple was first built in the Song Dynasty , and was burnt down in 1419 in the Ming Dynasty . Later, the temple was rebulit and renovated several times .