Eastern Air Temple

"air"

- This temple is the most spiritual of all the air temples.

The Eastern Air Temple is one of the four original temples of the Air Nomads and is currently inhabited by a group of Air Acolytes. Before the Hundred Year War, it was one of the two air temples, the other being the Western Air Temple, which exclusively housed female airbenders. However, its population was wiped out during the Air Nomad Genocide in 0 AG. Guru Pathik lived at the temple for an extended period, where he eventually taught Avatar Aang how to control the Avatar State, and seventy one years later, Korra was taught here how to enter the Spirit World by Jinora.

History


Avatar Kuruk learned airbending in this temple hundreds of years prior to Aang's time. During Aang's childhood, a group of female nomads including Sister Iio were present at the temple, caring for a herd of sky bison. Among an adult bison's litter was a newborn Appa, who soon became Aang's animal guide. Six years afterward, Avatar Aang was to be separated from his mentor, Monk Gyatso by the elders of the Southern Air Temple, who decided to send Aang to the Eastern Air Temple to complete his airbending training, away from Gyatso's fatherly influence. However, before they could do this, Aang overheard their plans and ran away.

This temple suffered a great amount of damage at the hands of the Fire Nation after Fire Lord Sozin declared war on the other three nations. He used the powers of Sozin's Comet to kill the Air Nomads residing in the temple. Out of all of the existing air temples, the Eastern Air Temple suffered the worst damage.

A hundred years after the genocide, Aang traveled to the Eastern Air Temple to meet Guru Pathik, who had been waiting for him after a vision. The guru recently had a run-in with Appa, who fled to the temple following his capture. The guru cared for Appa and sent him off with a letter to Aang, which stated that he could teach him how to control the Avatar State. Guru Pathik and Aang went through a series of meditations designed to open the seven chakras. However, Aang left the temple during the process of unlocking his seventh chakra, rendering him unable to enter the Avatar State at all.



In 171 AG, Tenzin and his family visited the temple as part of their vacation, intending to visit all the ancient sites after their restoration by the Air Acolytes residing there. That plan changed, however, upon Korra's arrival and transformed into a quest to help the Avatar enter the Spirit World. In order to do so, Tenzin took Korra to several highly-spiritual places, though none of them proved to be sufficient enough to let Korra cross over. Eventually, Jinora informed her father that she could help as she had been in contact with spirits before. To prove her claim, she told her dragonfly bunny spirit friends to show themselves, much to the amazement of her family.

The spirits subsequently guided Korra and the others to a neglected meditation circle. However, after Tenzin performed a spiritual cleansing ritual, the group was attacked by a swarm of bat-like dark spirits that resided there. When Korra used Unalaq's purifying technique to calm the spirits, the overgrowing vegetation disappeared, restoring the site to its former glory. Korra allowed Tenzin to meditate first in hopes of crossing over to the Spirit World. However, the airbending master's attempts proved to be futile, and his eldest daughter, Jinora, took over, successfully guiding Korra into the Spirit World.

Description
Unlike the Northern and Southern Air Temples, the Eastern Air Temple is housed on three separate mountains, connected by bridges. Not much is known about its physical appearance, except that it was once a great temple, left desolate after the Fire Nation's attacks. It has three pagodas, one on each mountain, with green tiled roofs. The center mountain pagoda has a couple smaller buildings next to it.

Bison stables


The Eastern Air Temple was the former home to many flying bison, though since the slaying of the Air Nomads, the stables are home to many spider bats. Appa was born and raised here and had left his mark in his stall by biting the metal ring around the manger. When Appa visited the stables a century later, he had a flashback of his youth here, and reminiscing, he bit the ring as he used to, but wound up coughing heavily.

Meditation circle


The meditation circle is located some distance from the main temple. The area was not known by the Air Acolytes, and due to its neglect, there was an overgrowth of vegetation and reduced spiritual connections. Following Tenzin's cleansing of the area, the group was overwhelmed by swarms of bat-like dark spirits. After Korra purified the spirits, the overgrowing vegetation disappeared, restoring the circle to its former glory.

Notable figures

 * Appa
 * Appa's mother
 * Guru Pathik
 * Sister Iio

Trivia



 * This is the only air temple that is not the title of an episode, and the only one visited solely by Aang throughout Team Avatar's journey.
 * Though it was the most damaged, the Eastern Air Temple did not exhibit any damage from the severe fire attacks shown in the flashback episode, "The Avatar and the Fire Lord", where the temples burnt immensely.
 * Along with the other three ancient air temples, the Eastern Air Temple was restored to its former glory by Avatar Aang after the Hundred Year War.
 * According to Tenzin, the Eastern Air Temple is the most spiritual of the four Air Temples.