Big Buddha

The temple of heaven Buddha is a Buddha statue of Sakyamuni on Muyu peak in front of Baolian temple on Lantau Island, Hong Kong. It is located at angping, 520 meters above sea level. The temple of heaven Buddha is designed and produced by the Ministry of space science and technology of China. Sitting on a 268 level stone step, the Buddha statue consists of 202 pieces of copper (160 Buddha bodies, 36 lotus flowers and 6 cloud heads). It is 26.4 meters high, 34 meters high and 250 tons heavy. Sitting on a three story altar, it costs more than 60 million Hong Kong dollars. It is the second largest outdoor bronze seated Buddha in the world, second only to the Buddha in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan Province Light Buddha. The construction of the temple of heaven Buddha started in 1990. On December 29, 1993 (November 17 of the lunar calendar), the birthday of Amitabha, a Buddhist, opened. Now it is one of the famous tourist attractions in Hong Kong.

Shakya Muni

synonym

The temple of heaven Buddha generally refers to Sakyamuni (1993)

The temple of heaven Buddha is the highest outdoor bronze seated Buddha in the world. It sits on Muyu peak on Lantau Island, Hong Kong, 482 meters above sea level. This magnificent Buddha, built by Baolian Buddhist temple and completed in 12 years, symbolizes the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong, the peace of the country and the people, and the peace of the world.

The temple of heaven Buddha is composed of 200 bronze castings, 26 meters high and weighing 220 tons. It is the largest outdoor bronze seated Buddha in the world. The face of the Great Buddha is similar to that of Lushena Buddha in Longmen Grottoes, and the texture and headdress of the clothes are similar to that of Sakyamuni Buddha in cave 36 of Dunhuang Grottoes. The Giant Buddha sits on the lotus, taking out the mud without being stained.

The Great Buddha in the temple of heaven is an important landmark in Hong Kong, attracting many believers and tourists from home and abroad. The Great Buddha in the temple of heaven is not only an outstanding project, but also an outstanding achievement of modern Buddhist statue art and a precious cultural heritage of mankind.

The origin of construction

According to the Buddhist scriptures, before the Buddha died, the king Youcai of the central India's sand splashing Kingdom and the king bosni of the gyasara Kingdom began to think of the Buddha as his mother, so they called on craftsmen to build a 5-foot-high Buddha statue with felt sandalwood and purple polished gold respectively to comfort their parting feelings, which is the origin of Buddhist statues. In the following hundreds of years, the Buddhists used more language and words to promote Buddhism than statues, because the believers thought that the Buddha was a saint with supreme wisdom, and its solemn Dharma phase could not be described - no one had ever reached the level of Buddha's great wisdom, so the image of people was not enough to compare. Believers only use footprints, Falun, bodhi tree and deer to symbolize the existence of Sakyamuni Buddha.

It was not until the first century A.D., when some believers advocated worshiping the Buddha to gain enlightenment, that Buddha statues began to appear.

When Buddhism was introduced into China in the Eastern Han Dynasty, a large number of Buddhist, Bodhisattva, Feitian, Lishi and other models of deductive doctrines were spread, which directly contributed to the vigorous development of religious art. From the Northern Wei Dynasty to the Tang and Song Dynasties, the development of Chinese Buddhist art is the most brilliant period. From Dunhuang thousand Buddha cave, Maiji Mountain, Yungang, Longmen, Gongxian County, to the fowan and Baoding mountain in Dazu, Sichuan Province, there has been a continuous trend of digging large-scale caves and temples and carving Buddha statues. Despite the destruction of a large number of Buddha sculptures caused by natural disasters and wars, today we can still appreciate the magnificent atmosphere of ancient religious art standing under the Giant Buddha sculptures in Longmen, Luoyang or Leshan, Sichuan.

After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Buddhist sculpture gradually declined, large outdoor Buddha statues were rare, and a tradition that lasted for more than 1000 years was obviously lost.

Historical evolution

In 1973, Japan's Cao Dongzong invited master Zhihui and Yuanhui of Baolian temple to visit Japan. The master was deeply impressed by the seriousness of Kamakura Buddha's manor. Later, when you visited Taiwan and saw the magnificence of the Great Buddha in Changhua, you came up with the idea that all the places where the Buddhists' Dharma is widely spread are full of symbolic Buddha statues. It is a tradition worth carrying forward to carry forward the doctrines with Buddha statues (Buddhism was once called "iconicism" in ancient times). Therefore, you vowed to build a great Buddha for Hong Kong, in order to provide stability and peace to the public through the Buddha statues Spiritual consolation, purification of the soul, so that the mood of confusion has a return, a common trend of peace.

In 1974, Baolian temple was granted a 6567 square meter Muyu peak by the government at a symbolic land price to build the Buddha.

In 1979, when China opened up to the outside world, all the mages were invited back to visit the Longmen and Dunhuang Grottoes. They first saw the Buddha statues in Longmen and Dunhuang Grottoes. They were impressed with the construction of the Great Buddha. They also visited the temple of heaven in Beijing, where the Buddha was regarded as "heaven in heaven" and "saint in Saint". The temple of heaven is the place to worship heaven. Therefore, they conceived to support the Great Buddha with the temple of heaven as the base. This is the origin of the name of the Great Buddha in the temple of heaven.

On December 26, 1981, the temple officially established the "Baolian Temple planning for the construction of the temple of heaven Buddha committee", which is responsible for the research and preparation work, including the examination and approval of the artistic forms of Buddha statues, building materials and construction details.

Artistic modeling

The shape of the Great Buddha is based on the thirty-two forms of the Tathagata Sutra. Its face is similar to that of the piluzana Buddha in Longmen Grottoes, and its round and elegant shape is taken. Its clothing pattern and headdress are similar to the Buddha statue of Sakyamuni in cave 360 of Dunhuang Grottoes, and its graceful and smooth style is taken. Therefore, the Buddha statue has both the characteristics of Buddhism in the heyday of Sui and Tang Dynasties, and then it is reconciled and unified by artists, thus becoming the shape of the Great Buddha in the temple of heaven today .

The original plaster mold of the Buddha was made by Ms. Hou Jinhui of Guangzhou Academy of fine arts. From April 1982 to February 1984, she began to build a plaster model with a ratio of 1:5. During this period, she kept Deliberating with the artists responsible for the image of the Great Buddha. Only after eight changes of the manuscript could she achieve the goal.

Each detailed shape of the Buddha has religious symbolic significance

Buddha statue

His face is like a full moon, his forehead is wide and straight, his ears are drooping over his shoulders, showing the Buddha's blessing and wisdom. A smile of kindness makes all living beings happy. On the top of the bun, the snail hair represents the wisdom of the Buddha. Green lotus eyes, eyebrows as early as the moon, soft lines, symbolizing the Buddha's benevolent eyes. Between the two eyebrows, there is a hair as white as snow and soft as cotton, which turns to the right, representing the Buddha's preaching of truth and Dharma to all living beings.

Palm

It is long and round, soft and firm. The right hand shows the seal of fearlessness, which shows the Buddha's desire to save all living beings;

With the left hand hanging down on the foot, the reverse palm is outward, and the fingertip is slightly downward, it is called "and wish seal", which contains the blessing and kindness wish with all living beings.

The Dharma wheel in the center of two palms represents the eternal existence of the Dharma.

Chest

The word "zhe" on the chest represents the solemnity of the Buddha.

lotus throne

The Buddha sitting on the lotus platform is like a lotus coming out of the mud without being stained. It means that the Buddha is clean and free from dirt, and can go deep into the five turbid and evil world, and help all living beings who are strong and difficult to subdue. The Buddha's form is full and peaceful, and its appearance is majestic and meticulous, showing the verve of the Buddha's compassion and love.

Construction process

The original idea of the Buddha was to use reinforced concrete (concrete) as the main material. However, due to the limitations of the concrete itself, it is difficult to meet the requirements of the Buddha's shape, the structure is difficult, and it is difficult to control the effect and cost after completion. Therefore, tin bronze was finally selected as the construction material.

The actual casting, processing and installation of the Buddha are mainly in the charge of Nanjing Chenguang machinery factory, Ministry of space of China. The project can be divided into six stages

Design

In the total engineering design, more than 5000 drawings and 300 volumes of technical documents were drawn up and printed in less than three months, and the engineering progress of each month and day in three years was determined by using system analysis.

lofting

The one to five (more than five meters high) plaster model of the Great Buddha was transported by water from Guangzhou to Nanjing on September 26, 1986.

Lofting is the first mock exam of a unique numerical control box. The engineering technicians use stereo photography to model the figure of one to five, find out the location of the Buddha in space, determine 3900 punctuation points, magnify and enlarge with computer, and use traditional methods to make wooden boxes inside the sections, and plaster the outer layer to make one to one model.

casting

The inner framework is used to support the Buddha body, and the Buddha body is cast into a bronze panel, and then fixed with bolts. The main frame is made of steel, and the auxiliary bracket is used to connect the copper wall plate with the main steel frame.

After research and calculation, the technicians divided the whole Buddha into 202 panels, with thickness ranging from 10 mm to 13 mm. According to the different parts of the Buddha body, it is made into extremely accurate casting mold. The error of each cast panel shall not exceed 3mm.

In order to fully show the solemn virtue of Sakyamuni Buddha and achieve the perfect artistic form, the professional technicians finally overcome the technical difficulties and successfully cast the whole Buddha face at one time. The Buddha's face is 4.3 meters high, 5.8 meters wide, 13 mm thick and 5 tons heavy.

Pre installation

The pre installation in the factory is to prepare for the general installation on site, and solve the problems that may occur in the field installation in the factory first.

In the pre installation, the Buddha was divided into upper, middle and lower sections for installation, and some copper wall panels were corrected and trimmed, as well as preliminary mechanical finishing.

transport

The copper siding was shipped to Hong Kong by sea in April 1989. However, the Buddha's face is too large, and the narrow mountain road on Lantau Island makes it difficult for people to understand

Chinese PinYin : Tian Tan Da Fo