128
The front part of these three easternmost sections at the Lung Kai nunnery comprised the guest quarters (in the first and third sections), and the main entrance to the nunnery (in the second section). The guest quarters consisted of a twelve foot square room in each of the two sections in question, each with a cockloft above, and each opening off the Tin Tseng.
At the Lung Kai nunnery the residential accommodation for the nuns, with the kitchen, was in the fourth and fifth sections, but nothing of this survives, except for the doorsill of the door connecting it with the Tin Tseng (including the marks of the settings for the bars), and the sill of the external door connecting the quarters of the nuns directly with the access path to the nunnery. The nunnery opened directly onto this access path, and backed directly onto the hillside; there was no courtyard or enclosure.
The present layout of the Ling To monastery (this institution was previously a nunnery, but has housed immigrant monks for the last seventy years) suggests that the original plan there was not dissimilar. The present (1970) buildings form a rectangle, of about 85 feet by 65 feet, divided into rooms which seem to represent the shadow of a previous arrangement whereby the buildings were divided into sections by walls running from the front to the back. The present structure suggests that there were, before the 1970 rebuilding, five of these walls, and six sections. The buildings face approximately due north. The easternmost two sections seem likely to have been the original living quarters. The third to fifth sections are now used as worshipping space, and this seems likely to have been the original use as well. The main entrance was previously in the fourth section, (it was moved to the sixth section in 1970) and the space where it used to be has two small square rooms to either side of it, which are likely to be part of the original design; these may have been the original guest-quarters, as in the corresponding position at Lung Kai. The monastery is roofed with two transverse gables, with Tin Tseng between, and this is also likely to be part of the original design: Tin Tseng are currently found in the second, the fourth (this Tin Tseng probably originally covered the whole of sections three to five), and another in the sixth section.
It will be seen that the Ling To monastery originally had a plan which seems to have been almost identical with Lung Kai, with the addition of a sixth section beyond the triple worshipping halls. It is possible that