Qutan Hall,a Tibetan Buddhist temple standing around the Hehuang and Taomin region,was built inside Qutan Monastery of Ledu county,Qinghai Province at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.The moderate but elaborate layout of the hall marks the ever influential and mature cultural heritage it was built upon in history.The main iconographic program----two sets of five deities from five families that are kept opposite to each other on either sidewall,and the images of Sudhana Visiting The Various Spiritual Guides----can trace back to the royal monasteries in Dadu(now Beijing) of the Yuan Dynasty,which suggests the Huayan School of the Buddhism played an unusual role in the cultural exchanges between the Han and Tibetan Chinese.The paper holds that,when it comes to the origins of the wall paintings inside here,much importance should be attached to the local centers of politics and culture with the city of Taiyuan as an example,which stands along the pilgrimage for Tibetan monks to Mount Wutai to connect the imperial capital and a remote monastery like Qutan Monastery.
