Great Buddha Cliff Carvings

Great Buddha Cliff Carvings

The Great Buddha Cliff Carvings are a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The Great Buddha Cliff Carvings are located on Daxiang Mountain on the eastern bank of the Jialing River. The main feature is a large cliff stone-carved Buddha. This seated Sakyamuni Buddha was carved directly from natural rock, standing about 10 meters tall, and is one of the ten great Buddha statues in Sichuan. The Buddha has a spiral hairtopknot, stands atop a lotus pedestal, features an exposed chest and open robe, rests the left hand on the knee, and the right hand is bent in a fearless gesture, with raised drapery lines, exuding a solemn and compassionate aura. The great Buddha is sheltered under a triple-eaved pavilion-style building known as the Great Buddha Temple, also called the Daxiang Temple. According to a carving inside a cliff niche dated to the fourth year of the Yuanhe era of the Tang Dynasty (809 AD), recorded in the “Inscription of Layman He at Eastern Mountain Great Buddha Retreat,” this Buddha was carved by a local lay devotee named He from Langzhong, and completed before the year 809. In the first year of the Longde era of the Five Dynasties (921 AD), over 4,000 small Buddha statues, each about 10.2 cm tall, were added in neat rows behind the great Buddha, showcasing exquisite craftsmanship. In the eighth year of the Yuanyou era during the reign of Emperor Shenzong of the Song Dynasty (1085 AD), the large and small Buddha statues were gilded. In the second year of the Yongxi era under Emperor Taizong of the Song Dynasty (985 AD), the Thousand Volume Huayan Scripture Pagoda was newly built, and the Great Buddha Temple was decreed as Yong’an Chan Monastery. In the second year of the Chongning era of Emperor Huizong’s reign (1103 AD), it was renamed Fuchang Monastery to avoid a naming taboo. During the Ming Dynasty, it reverted to being called the Great Buddha Temple, also known as the Great Buddha Monastery. The monastery buildings have been demolished and rebuilt multiple times, with the current version reconstructed in 1991. Beside the Great Buddha are two stone statues: the South Sea Avalokiteshvara and the Child-Giving Avalokiteshvara. To the right are two grotto niches, containing pagodas and Buddha figures—five Tang and Song Dynasty cliff carvings, one dhāraṇī pillar, as well as 24 stone carvings from the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing periods, one cliff-carved tomb consisting of five excavated chambers, and over ten other weathered cliff carvings that are no longer identifiable, stretching over 150 meters in total. To the left are attractions such as the Daxiang Retreat and Huangjia Pavilion, covering an area of 164 mu (approximately 10.9 hectares) with a built-up area of 2,735 square meters. Du Fu once wrote two poems about Huangjia Pavilion: “Wild fields connect with butterflies, riverside rails overlook mandarin ducks. As evening falls, the fireworks blur, and the breeze wafts the fragrance of brocades.”

In May 2013, the Great Buddha Cliff Carvings were listed as part of the seventh batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units.

Further Reading:

· Seventh Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units