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Home → China City Guide → Wuhan City Guide → Guiyuan Buddhist Temple, Wuhan

Guiyuan Buddhist Temple, Wuhan




The word “Guiyuan” orinates from a sutra, meaning to surpass the circumscription of existence and extinguishment, to return to purity and tranquility.

Covering an area of about 46,900 square meters, Guiyuan Buddhist Temple is in a garden style, it is made up of five courtyards: the eastern courtyard, the western courtyard, the southern courtyard, the northern courtyard, and the middle courtyard.

Guiyuan Temple is well known for its grand architecture, Buddhist scriptures, The statues of Weito (the temple guardian) carved of oak, especially the 500 Lohans in the southern courtyard. They were vivd and lively just like real people. They are all identical in size, and each is no more than 25 kilogram's in weight. What is most amazing is that one can never find two Lohans with the same appearance or expression. They are all totally different from each other. Counting Lohans in the courtyard forms an interesting custom in Wuhan. It is said that one can know the disasters and fortunes in the present year by counting the Lohans.

The Guiyuan Temple is very famous in the Buddhist world owning to perfect construction, spiffyculpture and abundant collection. A large number of people including our compatriots in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan and those residing abroad, as well as many foreign tourists including some important persons in the politics of all countries such as Sihanouk, King of Cambodia, Kissinger, United States Secretary of State, Li Guangyao, former prime minister of Singapore, Yasuhiro Nakasone, Prime Minister of Japan and some other famous persons have successively been here to visit it. They presented gifts to the temple separately.