Hexi Corridor D8: Zhangye Giant Buddha Temple

This should be one of the most anticipated places in the Hexi trip! On the eighth day, I finally arrived at the long-awaited Giant Buddha Temple! The Giant Buddha Temple was built during the Western Xia period and has a history of nearly a thousand years. The Giant Buddha Hall is the largest Western Xia Buddha Hall preserved in the country, and inside is the largest Sakyamuni Nirvana reclining Buddha statue in the country. The reclining Buddha statue is 34.5 meters long and 7.5 meters wide at the shoulders. A person can lie down on a finger. When you step into the temple door, you can't see the end on the left and right. You have to walk to the left clockwise around the Buddha to see the whole picture. The eyes of the reclining Buddha seen by people standing in front of the Buddha's abdomen, shoulders, and forehead are different. The Buddha's two feet are together and are taller than a person. Standing next to every place is shocking, and I can't bear to leave after going around three or five times. Among the people who go around the Buddha, there are many Tibetans. When they reach the position of the foot, they all hold the glass cabinet with their hands and put their foreheads on the position of the foot to show their respect. When I turned to the fourth week, I also met several Japanese old people who were helping each other. They were also constantly making surprised praises, sometimes looking up and sometimes bowing in worship, slowly walking around the Buddha. This reclining Buddha is a mud statue with a fetus, and there is a huge hollow skeleton inside. There are wooden ladders up and down connected, and many Buddhist cultural relics have been found in the body. The guide pointed to the front of the Buddha's robe, where there were traces of man-made destruction during a special period in history, which has now been repaired, but the color is different from the surroundings. People regret it, but more fortunately, the reclining Buddha statue has not been completely destroyed. In the Tibetan Scripture Hall behind, many scriptures and cultural relics unearthed in the Giant Buddha Temple are displayed, including the treasures of the town hall, the single copy of the Northern Tibetan Buddhist scriptures and the Prajna Golden Sutra. In a corner of the temple is the old site of the Shanxi Guild Hall, with the Zhongyi Guandi Temple and the theater building, which attracted people around to discuss: It is surprising that a corner can be drawn in such a solemn and magnificent temple as a guild hall to listen to the opera, which shows the power and influence of the business association at that time. Life satisfaction +1