Rudong Guoqing Garden

Rudong Guoqing Garden

Rudong Guoqing Garden is a national AAA-level tourist attraction.

The Rudong County Guoqing Garden scenic area covers approximately 15,000 square meters in total and is divided into two sections: the Guoqing Temple area and the Guoqing Pagoda area, forming an east-temple-west-pagoda layout. It is the first national-level scenic spot in our county centered around Buddhist historical and cultural resources. Its thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara jade Buddha is extremely rare nationwide and can be considered truly unique.

The history of Guoqing Temple is almost as long as the formation of land in Rudong Juegang. In the early years of the Tang Dynasty, a seawall was built to separate Juegang from the beach, and Guoqing Temple was constructed in response to people’s hopes for a peaceful and prosperous era. Juegang Guoqing Temple was established during the reign of Emperor Dezong of the Tang Dynasty. The monk who oversaw its construction was named Xingman, the tenth patriarch of Guoqing Temple on Tiantai Mountain. That’s why the Guoqing Temple in Juegang and the one on Tiantai Mountain share the same name and originally followed the same architectural style. When constructing the temple, Master Xingman once said, “If the temple is completed, the nation will be at peace.” However, this ancient temple, which has weathered a thousand years of ups and downs in history, did not enjoy the tranquility and peace that Master Xingman had hoped for.

Inside the main hall of Guoqing Temple are enshrined the Three Ages of Buddhas: Sakyamuni in the center, Amitabha Buddha of the Western Pure Land on the right, and Bhaisajyaguru (Medicine Buddha) of the Eastern Pure Lapis Lazuli World on the left. Unlike other temples where the attendants flanking Sakyamuni are usually Ananda and Kassapa, here the Bhaisajyaguru heals and saves lives, while Amitabha Buddha guides souls to enlightenment. The most precious treasure of Guoqing Temple is the white jade thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara enshrined in the chanting hall. This jade statue of the bodhisattva, a gift from Myanmar, was carved from a single piece of Burmese jade. The jade is fine-grained, standing eight meters tall and weighing four tons. A jade Avalokiteshvara in this form is also very rare in China. A thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara jade Buddha like the one at Guoqing Temple is truly one of a kind and can be considered the first of its kind among all Guoqing Temples nationwide.