16 Dec 2017 - Shanghai Day 2: Jing'an Temple (静安寺)

The first place where we visited today is Jing'an Temple (静安寺), which is just a few Metro stops away from Hong Qiao. Jing'an Temple is one of the most famous temples in Shanghai located at West Nanjing Road. In 1983, it was put on the list of nationally protected sites.

Jing'an Temple ("Temple of Peace and Tranquility") is an ancient Buddhist temple with a history of more than 700 years. The temple was first built in 247 AD in the Wu Kingdom during the Three Kingdoms period of ancient China and was named Hudu Chongyuan Temple.. When it was originally built, it was located beside the Suzhou Creek. In 1216 during the Song Dynasty, it was relocated to its present address. The present temple was rebuilt in the Qing Dynasty.  The first tramcar was built taking Jing'an Temple as its starting station. Later, a famous calligrapher renamed it as Jing'an Temple in 1945 and is still named as such today. The temple site became a plastics factory during the cultural revolution, and the buildings were burned down in 1972. However, the reconstruction began after 1984, so the Hall of Heavenly Kings and the Three-Sage Hall were repaired in succession. In 1990, the whole temple was finally opened to the public.

There is a large tripod shrine in a court area where people burn sticks or paper and try to throw coins for good luck.  After Jerlene and Javier saw what the other people did, they too started throwing coins into the shrine.

There are three main halls here: The Mahavira Hall, the Hall of Heavenly Kings and the ThreeSage Hall.

In Mahavira Hall, the biggest pure jade portrait of Sakyamuni in Mainland China is placed. The jade Buddha has a height of 3.78 meters (about 12 feet), a weight of 2.6 meters (about 9 feet) and a weight of 11,000 kilograms.

It was amazing to visit such a place in the middle of a busy city district.

Other than the Jade Buddha, there are other Buddhist or Taoist idols situated in different halls within Jing'an Temple.

A huge drum known as the Peace Drum (太平鼓) was seen in one of the smaller hall.

We spent more than an hour visiting the various parts of the temple.  Before we left, Jerlene and Javier decided to make a few more good luck wishes by throwing more coins into the tripod shrine.  :-)

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