Dayu Xingjiao Temple

Dayu Xingjiao Temple

Dayu Xingjiao Temple is a cultural heritage site protected at the provincial level in Jiangxi Province.

Ganzhou’s Xingjiao Temple is located in Xinyu Village, Meiguan Town, two li southwest of the county town. It was among the first batch of provincial-level cultural heritage sites announced by the provincial government in 1957. Legend has it that the temple was supervised in construction by Yu Chijingong in the early Tang Dynasty. The Dayu County Annals record: the temple was built during the Baoda era of the Southern Tang Dynasty, and in the Zhenghe period of the Song Dynasty (1111–1118), Emperor Huizong Zhao Ji bestowed the name Xingjiao Temple. In the eighth year of the Xianfeng reign of the Qing Dynasty (1858), it was destroyed in war, leaving only the monks’ quarters. The over ten-foot-tall bronze statue of the guiding Buddha (commonly known as the Snail Bodhisattva) in the front hall had nowhere to be housed and suffered from wind and rain erosion. By the eleventh year of the Tongzhi reign (1872), Yang Zhun, the prefect, led local gentry in donating funds to rebuild the temple halls and renovate the rear section. During the Republican era, the temple flourished in incense offerings, especially revered by rural devotees. Every year during sowing and harvest seasons, they came to worship the Snail Bodhisattva, praying for favorable weather and abundant harvests. During the Cultural Revolution’s campaign to “smash the Four Olds,” the bronze guiding Buddha and the temple halls were completely destroyed, leaving only the rear section. After religious policies were reinstated in 1981, monks and devotees gradually rebuilt the temple through donations, and worshippers have since increased steadily.

Xingjiao Temple now covers an area of about five mu. The main hall remains a single-story building with earthen walls, consisting of three bays. The wooden pillars inside support a grid frame, with side walls seven meters high and the roof peak reaching seven meters. On the front porch pillars are inscribed gilded regular script couplets reading: “Raising the banner, enlightening the Buddha — the Dharma realm is vast, relying on one's own progress; teaching all beings — the sea of suffering is boundless, one must turn back.” The main hall is 13.5 meters deep and 12 meters wide, supported by four wooden pillars. Inside the hall, there are three Buddhist altars arranged from front to back: the foremost enshrines Skanda Bodhisattva; the middle one is the altar for offerings; the third altar is divided into upper and lower levels, with the upper level featuring in the center a bronze statue of Amitabha Buddha, to the left a bronze statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva, and to the right a bronze statue of Mahasthamaprapta Bodhisattva. At the center of the hall is a 1.13-meter-tall bronze statue of Sakyamuni Buddha, flanked on the left by Samantabhadra Bodhisattva and Avici, and on the right by Kasyapa and Manjushri Bodhisattva. There are also two precious cauldrons in the temple: one double-layered, three meters tall, and one single-layered, two meters tall.

Address: Xinyu Village, Meiguan Town