Wenshu Buddhist Temple

Wenshu Buddhist Temple is located in the downtown area of Chengdu. It was known originally as the Miaoyuan Pagoda in Tang Dynasty and changed to present name after the repair work in the Qing Dynasty. It is oldest temple in Chengdu and is usually crowded with tourists and Buddhists. A temple was originally built at this site in the north of the city during the Tang Dynasty. The building today however is a Qing Dynasty construction consisting of an impressive collection of buildings holding some intricate and beautiful art and architecture.

The temple covers an area of about 13.5 acres with the five main halls deployed symmetrically along a central axis, all with pretty tiled roofs, carved eaves and beautifully painted ceilings. The temples most conspicuous collection includes 200 elaborate statues of Buddha, 500 pieces of paintings and calligraphies from famous people and over 120,000 volumes of rare Buddhist Scriptures. Many tablets, sculptures and embroideries, some of which date back to the Han Dynasty can also be found here. Among the collections of the temple includes the skull of Xuan Zhuang, the great Buddhist master of the Tang dynasty, Buddhist sutras embroidered with Song -- style calligraphy, the 1'000 -- Buddha cassock embroidered by Concubine Tian of the emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty and the portraits of Bodhisattvas embroidered with human hair.