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The Guan Yu Forest is actually the memorial temple and the tomb for Guan Yu. It is called "Forest" merely because there are a lot of ancient pine and cypress trees around the area, which is located right in Guanlin Town south of the Luoyang city.
 Guan Yu (160 - 219 AD) who originally came from Shanxi province and was also called Guan Yunchang, was a famous general of the Shu Kingdom during the Three Kingdoms Period (220 - 277 AD). Legend has it that Guan Yu's head was buried here after he was captured and decapitated.
General Guan Yu, well- known for his loyalty, faithfulness, boldness and powerfulness, had been regarded from the Three Kingdoms period to the Sui Dynasty, the peerless hero and raised to the level of quasi-religion and therefore worshiped as a Buddha.
The main entrance is a 5-room- wide tower with three doorways leading to the inside; each door of the gate tower, red in color, is inlaid with 81 golden rivets, the treatment only for Chinese kings and emperors. The halls behind the gate tower are magnificent and full power and grandeur. Inside the first hall there is the statue of General Guan Yu in the sitting position who wears an imperial crown and imperial robe with the design of dragon on it which are the attire only for a Chinese king or an emperor. On both sides of the statue of Guan Yu there are two standing statues: Guan Pin, Guan Yu's son, on the left, holds a big seal and Zhou Cang, Guan's disciple, on the right, holds a big saber. The second hall is the Hall of Warriors. On both sides of the second hall are two accompanying halls of the Hall of Zhang Fei and the Hall of Five Brave Generals. Behind the second hall is the third hall, the Hall of Spring and Autumn, in which there are two statues of Guan Yu, one in the sitting and the other in the supine position, both are reading by a candle, a history book " Spring and Autumn". On the walls around are drawings telling stories of Guan Yu like "Three Generals fighting Lu Bu", "To Capture Jingzhou", " A Battle at Changsha" and so on.
At the rear is a backyard in which there is a pavilion called "Dragon Tablet Pavilion", which was established in the Qing Dynasty. On the pavilion there is horizontal plaque and inside there is a big tablet with the inscription commemorating Guan Yu. |
