Zhaoguli Buddhist Temple The temple Iies on the southern side of the Querdage Mountain ,23 kilometers east of the city of Kuqa. A ruined temple built in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, it is composed of two parts, namely, the West Temple and the East Temple, which stand facing each other on the banks of the Tongchang River. The East Temple was built against a precipice, with the wall already di- lapidated and the houses and pagodas in ruins. The houses, pagodas and wails are all built of adobes with some of the walls over ten meters high. There are storeyed buildings, looking very magnificent. The northernmost one of its three great pagodas stands half way up the hill, overlooking the entire scene of the collapsing shrine. The west Temple is connected with the cliff behind it by a square enclosure of adobes which has a circumference of 318 meters and a height of over ten meters. The space thus fenced off is criss-cross with ruined walls, seemingly the remains of some residential houses for the monks. There are also some pagodas here. Besides, on the north side of the temple, there is a row of Buddhist caves, the walls of which are carved with human images and inscriptions in the Qiuzi language. Here, archeologists have excavated utensils of copper, iron, pottery and wood, and also some frescoes and clay Buddha statuettes. They have, in addition, discovered some wooden tablets and broken sheets of paper with letters of some ancient languages written on them. In April, 1978, archeologists found out an ancient tomb in the vicinities of the pagoda, and also a mural of human images with inscriptions on it in the Qiuzi language. All the finds supply rare and valuable information for the investigation of the ruins.
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