Grand Buddha Temple
Zhangye Grand Buddha Temple was first built in the first year in Yong'an Era of Emperor Chong of Western Hsia, 900 years from now. The name of the Grand Buddha Temple has been changed for several times, for example, "Jiaye Rulai Temple", "Baojue Temple", "Hongren Temple", etc. China's largest indoor reclining Buddha - the Nirvan of Sakyamuni Buddha lies in this temple. He lies peacefully on a 1.2-meter-high altar in the center of the hall. The length of the body of the Buddha is 34.5 meters, the shoulder 7.5 meters, ears 4 meters and feet 5.2 meters. One man can lie on the middle finger of the Buddha, while eight persons can sit shoulder by shoulder on the Buddha's ear. Now it is easy to imagine how huge the sculpture is.
The current architectures in the Grand Buddha Temple are the Grand Buddha Hall, the Sutra Depository and the Earth Tower. The Grand Buddha Hall is huge in its scale, 33 meters in height and, in width, as long as 9 rooms. There are two engraved bricks on the both sides of the gate of the palace. The left one writes "Reaching the Elysian Fields" and "Western Paradise". The right one writes "Three Buddha in the Nirvana" and "Respect the Elysian and Develop the Sutra". There is a clay sculpture with wooden roughcast, which is 34.5 meters long, 7.5 meters wide in shoulder, 4 meters long in foot, and 2 meters in ear. The figure is covered with gold leaf and painted in various colors. It is so vividly made that if you look at it, it seems to be awake; however, if you try to call it, it seems to be sleeping. There are ten students behind the lying Buddha. Beside the two houses stand 18 arches. The frescos on the walls are descriptions of stories in "Journey to the West" and "Shan Hai Classic" (book on ancient Chinese geography). There are more than six thousand Buddha Sutra granted by Emperor Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty in the Depositary of Buddhist texts. These sutras are well preserved. The most pressure ones among them are written with gold or silver powders. There is a 33.37-meters-high earth pagoda behind the temple, which is one of the Zhangye Five Elements Pagoda. There is one small pagoda on every four corners of the first and second stories, which is rare in the country for the particular style. The Grand Buddha Temple is said to be the birth place of Hu Bilie, emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, as well as the place where Bieji Mother of the Emperor. In the late South Song Dynasty, Gongzong Emperor Zhaoxian had once became a monk and stayed in this temple to take refuge. The Grand Buddha Temple is very large in scale. In the 16th century, it was able to accommodate 5 to 6 thousand of people to worship here
