"[2] The Illustrated Chorography of Shu also states that the halls and towers of the temple "were decorated with gold and pearls," and calls it "an enchanting edifice of its time," but "it was later abandoned and destroyed during the chaos caused by a military conflict.
[5] The history of Pearl Temple is also recounted in volume 7 of Du Gongbu's Poems Annotated by Thousand Scholars [zh],[f][6] for the ruins of the church are the subject of Du Gongbu's poem "The Stone Shoots: A Ballad":[g] "Have you not seen by the west gate of Yizhou City, by a field lane the 'Stone Shoots,'[h] a pair crouching high.
He was unaware of the site being the ruins of a church, for he went on to write: "I suspect that in olden days these were tombs of a minister or grandee, they set the stones up as markers, and they still survive today."
[9] The so-called "stalagmites" were interpreted as a pair of dolmens[8] or menhirs[10] located outside the west gate of Yizhou City, which are no longer extant.
Accodring to Chang Qu's Chronicles of the Southern Lands, they were erected by five legendary warriors and served as tomb markers for the kings of Ancient Shu.
[11] They were also said to be the foundation of the Castle of Seven Treasures and subsequently of Pearl Temple, but this idea was rejected by Zhao Bian as stated in his Stories of Shu Commandery.