James Baquet

    jamesbaquet@gmail.com

    THIS morning, I discovered that one temple I had seen the day before — which the guard had said was Dabei Lou (Hall of Great Compassion) — was actually Zhantan Temple, my first goal for the day.

    The first impression one has of this temple is BIG. The next is new. Facing the road are three large, new halls; construction began on them in 2001.

    The one on the left has four huge statues of Guanyin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, standing back-to-back. This figure is surrounded by statues of Guanyin numbering 84 (by one monk’s count) or 116 (by another’s).

    The right-hand hall is similar in many ways, but there are four gigantic statues of Dizang, Jiuhua Mountain’s patron bodhisattva, also back-to-back. There are also 99 seated figures of Dizang around the hall.

    There are two life-sized statues of elephants in front of the central hall. Inside are large (again!) statues of the historical Buddha with Puxian (Samantabhadra) and Wenshu (Manjushri) bodhisattvas; these three together are called a Huayan Triad. To my eye, the statues looked a bit like cartoon characters.

    At the back of the property, crowded in behind a hotel, is the actual main hall of the temple, which — in addition to a central statue of Shakyamuni — has the gold-plated mummy of another Jiuhua “saint,” this one of the monk Ming Jing, who died in 1992.

    Big and extravagant as it is something about this temple left me cold. But before the day was over, I would have much warmer and more memorable experiences on the mountain.