Giant Buddha Temple 张掖大佛寺

About Giant Buddha Temple

Figures of disciples and other attendants surround the main image, creating a much fuller religious scene than a single statue. The temple’s surviving axis continues to a scripture hall and an earth-and-brick stupa. Their contrasting forms make the compound a useful place to compare the monumental image, the storage of sacred texts and the architecture of devotion.

The temple was first built in the Western Xia Yong'an era (1098), originally named Kasyapa Tathagata Temple (迦叶如来寺). It was renamed Baojue Temple (宝觉寺) by imperial decree in the Ming Yongle era (1411) and Hongren Temple (宏仁寺) by imperial decree in the Qing Kangxi era (1678), before becoming known as Dafo Temple, or Great Buddha Temple, after its giant reclining Buddha statue; it is also called Sleeping Buddha Temple. It was listed in 1996 as a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level (全国重点文物保护单位), as part of the fourth such batch.

The temple covers about 23,000 square meters and faces west; only the buildings on its central axis survive today: the Great Buddha Hall (大佛殿), the Sutra Repository (藏经阁) and an earth stupa. The Great Buddha Hall is nine bays wide (48.3 meters) and seven bays deep (24.5 meters), stands 20.2 meters tall over two stories, and has a double-eave gable-and-hip roof; inside are 31 painted clay sculptures dating from the Western Xia, including the 34.5-meter reclining Buddha, China's largest surviving indoor reclining Buddha statue, with a group of the ten chief disciples behind it and figures of lay devotees and the eighteen arhats beside it. The Sutra Repository is 21.3 meters wide and 10.5 meters deep, with a single-eave gable-and-hip roof.

What to look for

• The reclining Buddha and attendant figures inside the Great Buddha Hall.
• The scripture hall and the rounded earth-and-brick stupa on the surviving temple axis.

The surrounding area

The city base for the coloured Danxia hills in the surrounding Linze and Sunan area.

Location & getting there

Getting to Giant Buddha Temple

Approach through Dafo Temple Lane off Minzhu West Street in central Zhangye’s Ganzhou District. This is a city-centre temple, separate from the Danxia scenic areas outside Zhangye.