White Pagoda Temple

White Pagoda Temple

White Pagoda Temple is a cultural tourism attraction.

Backed by Miaohua Mountain and facing Ma’an Mountain, with lush green hills on either side that make it seem as though the temple is seated in a grand official’s chair, White Pagoda Temple boasts outstanding feng shui. Initially built during the Northern Song Dynasty, an earlier iteration stood atop Bai’e Mountain, but the pagoda and temple were eventually lost to time, leaving only ruins behind. The present-day White Pagoda Temple was reconstructed not long ago, consisting of a front and rear courtyard complex in the southern Chinese architectural style. Aside from the wooden statues of the two bodhisattvas Ānanda and Mahākāśyapa, the remaining 28 Buddha statues within the temple are all cast in bronze—locally referred to as "golden-bodied bodhisattvas." The bronze seated statue of Sakyamuni Buddha in the Mahavira Hall stands 8.5 meters tall and weighs 2.5 tons, making it the largest indoor bronze seated Buddha in any temple within the province. The corridor of the temple compound also features a unique brick-carved and gold-inlaid mural depicting the Five Hundred Arhats, the only one of its kind among temples in the region.