Le shan Buddha

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The Oriental Capital of Buddhism is another special place, for those loving ancient Buddha sites immersed in the forest.

The Oriental Capital of Buddhism is located at the Nine Peaks of Lingyun, Leshan. I fell in love with this marvelous place full of Buddha statues everywhere, it is said to be over 3,000 Buddha statues scattered in the entire area. The place was built during the Tang dynasty (618-907) but some parts of the ancient capital were destroyed in the Yuan (1271-1368) and Ming (1368-1644) dynasty.

I begun my exploration at the Great Hall, a giant Buddha at the entrance presented in front of me, it was probably 30 meters high, massive, beautiful, staring at it, on both sides of the wall there were niches reaching the height of his head, a pale light filtered in from a fissure in the rock illuminating part of the face and as my eye lowered down the pale light just disappeared in the darkness. It was one of those feeling hard to describe but as I entered that hall it was as I entered in another world, I was awestruck.The Buddha at the Great Hall is the Medicine Buddha.

Continuing along the path, I entered another room that showed, sculpted on the right wall, the Arhats (A saint who has completely eradicated the passions and attained liberation from the cycle of birth and death "samsara", just on the left was the samsara wheel or the wheel of reincarnation, a bit further down the hall was a beautiful sculpted figure of Bodhidharma (Bodhidharma was originally from India and went to China to teach the Zen Buddhism also known as "dharma". The teachings of Bodhidharma have a great influence on the Chinese culture. Then, I saw another great, beautiful and marvelous statue of a giant Buddha, I sat down on a step and admired it for a while, it was like being hypnotized, truly gorgeous and also here there was a fissure on top of the hall allowing in some light. Adjacent to this room there was another one with four huge statues of the Four Heavenly Kings (The Four Heavenly Kings are the protectors of the world in Buddhism). Virudhaka, King of the South who holds a sword, is the ruler of winds, Dhrtarastra, King of the East who holds a pipa is the ruler of music, Vaisravana, King of the North who holds and umbrella is the ruler of rain, Virupaksa, King of the West who holds a snake is the ruler of Buddhist conversation. In the middle of the Four Heavenly Kings was a statue of the Buddha. After visiting this room I arrived outside of the Oriental capital, there was another massive statue of the Buddha, this time was a sleeping Buddha, surrounding it lush forest, this view was utterly remarkable, it is one of the best view you can have around the city.

I really liked this part of the site, full of green, relaxing, quiet and I sat down on a bench listening to for a moment the sound of the lovely little birds.

After resting for a while I headed to visit the giant Buddha, which is in the last part of the theme park. Before admiring this giant Buddha, I had to queue for about 1 hour and a half, then I descended the long stairway taking me down to the bottom of the platform to admire this great Buddha statue. This Buddha is 71 meters tall, it was built 1200 years ago or so and It is beautifully carved out of a cliff facing the Min river. The tourists flow was incredible, I could hardly walk but it was worth to wait a long time to come down here and watch at this masterpiece of mankind.

This stunning place is just about a hundred kilometers from Chengdu and, if it happens to stop somewhere around here, this is a must see place.

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Buddha
So many buddhas so little time.

[Travelphilosophy]

Buddha
hello, indeed so little time, but for me it was definitely too much touristic. thanks bye bye

[xuxu]

why there is no tourists
Because I know Leshan buddha is visited many people every day.

[Travelphilosophy]

Leshan Buddha
Hello, well there were a lot of tourists but I always try not to take them in the pictures, I do like instead local people, you can take a look at the Shangri-La blog Thanks for your comment byebye