A Fifteenth-Century Sino-Tibetan Buddha Hall at the Lu Family Tusi

This paper focuses on Miaoyinsi, a Buddhist temple in Yongdeng County, Gansu province, at the Sino-Tibetan frontier. Miaoyinsi was constructed by the Mongolian Lu family, who governed this region beginning in the fifteenth century under the hereditary title tusi. Miaoyinsi’s main hall is unusual architecturally because while it is primarily a traditional Chinese structure, a narrow corridor wraps around three sides of the building, a feature more commonly associated with the architecture of Tibet. This hybrid building type exists in several other temples within this borderland region and can be considered a local architectural response to Tibetan Buddhist ritual practices.