After visiting the H.K. Railway Museum, I walked back to the subway and went three stops and exited at Sha Tin station to go to the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery. By the way, Sha Tin is where one of the racecourses is as well.
10,000 Buddhas Monastery is a Buddhist temple in Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong. It is not an actual monastery as there are no resident monks and is managed by laypersons. It was built by Yuet Kai, a devout Buddhist layman who dedicated the last years of his life to constructing an elaborate temple containing nearly 13,000 statues of Buddha.
In 1951, Yuet Kai founded the Monastery, coming to Hong Kong in 1933 to preach Buddhism in a local monastery and soon found many followers. The 10,000 Buddhas Monastery was constructed at the beginning of 1949 in the greenery of the New Territories. He originally planned to establish a Buddhist college on an estate donated by a wealthy merchant who was also a devout Buddhist but eventually decided instead to found a monastery and construction of the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery began. Despite his old age, Yuet Kai carried the buildings materials personally from the foot of the mountain together with his disciples to build the monastery. It took eight years to complete all the buildings and another ten years to finish the 12,800 Buddha statues in various poses. Construction was finished in 1957. The main Temple and the Pagoda of the Monastery are graded as Grade III Historic Buildings due to their historic significance.
The monastery is built over two levels on a bamboo forest hillside overlooking Sha Tin. There are as many as 400 steps lined on either side with 500 life-size gilded Buddhas.
There are two halls, temples or monasteries next to each other here at this location and I’m not sure if they’re either separate from each other or all part of the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery. There is a fairly steep climb to reach either, but efforts are rewarded with nearly 13,000 Buddhas both outside and inside the temple. There is no admission fee. There is a small vegetarian restaurant at the top that offers refreshments; I bought a bottle of water as well as a spring roll and something else, not sure what it really was.
It was a little crowded due to it obviously being Tomb Sweeping Day/Holiday.
A lot of pics are below as this was a very impressive sight and was the main stop of my day-trip.
Very cool looking. Must have been neat walking those stairs.
ReplyDeleteThis is Duke. Greg, what are the Buddhas made of; they look gold plated. Also, what is the significance of the header picture. It looks like some sort of store with cards in Chinese characters or pictures. Is this part of the 10000 Buddhas monastery?
ReplyDeleteI think the Buddhas were just painted plastic or graphite or something; but they were hollow I believe. The header pic is not a store and is part (I believe) of the monastery and are ancestral halls (again, I believe). I'm not sure exactly what they are but maybe some type of tomb? It was a little crowded due to it being Tomb Sweeping Holiday but there were many, many 'rooms' on different floors with all types of pictures and Chinese characters within each.
Deletehow cool is this. 10,000 sources of wisdom at your fingertips. it would take me all day to get out of this site.
ReplyDeleteif the 'site,' u mean the monastery and not the website, i agree. u could spend the whole day there. it was very cool. now laila, my teaching friend, wants to go to the 10,000 buddhas monastery...
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