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hillslope at the back and sides.
stone
As far as can be ascertained, the walls of the nunnery are throughout either of blue brick or of heavily plastered stone rubble, on footings of the standard building technique in the region. The roofs are of tile laid single thickness on beams supported directly by the walls. The only windows are very small (about one foot square) openings with bars and wooden shutters in the front face in the second and fourth sections, and the side wall of the fourth section, and two tiny single-brick openings, in the front wall of the second section, and the side wall of the fourth section.
The main temple hall is the third section. The main entrance to the nunnery is here, at the top of a shallow flight of steps. The double-leaved door opens into an Entrance Hall bare of all furniture except for the brick spirit-screen wall, with the altar to Wai To (卫道), the Defender of the Way, against its inner face. The Entrance Hall opens out into the Tin Tseng, which is mostly filled with the large brick paper-burner, and the steps up to the upper level. Above the steps is the Main Hall, with the altar against the back wall, and with a large offering table in front. The altar is to Kwun Yam, and has statues of the Lord Buddha (Sakyamuni), and the King of Hell (Ti Ts'ang Wang, 地藏王), as well as of Kwun Yam on it. To either side of the main altar are very small subordinate altars, where the tablets commemorating certain deceased monks are kept. In front of the main cult statues are five small images: two are unidentified, the others are of Milofu, Shan Ts'ai (善财), and Yũ Nũ (玉女). Below the altar is the usual shrine to the spirits of the Five Directions (五方).*
To the left of the Main Hall as you look at it from the entrance, i.e., at the back of the second section of the building, is the Side Hall, containing an altar to the Earth God (To Tei, 土地). This Side Hall has no Tin Tseng or windows, and is in consequence rather dark, being lit only by the light coming in from the arch which links this Hall with the Main Hall. The nunnery is now in a very run-down state, and it is not clear what furnishings were originally in this Hall: presumably there was an offering table of some sort in front of the altar. This Side Hall contains the inscription commemorating the rebuilding of the nunnery in 1868.
* I am indebted to Mr. Keith G. Stevens for identification of the deities worshipped in the nunnery.
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