Qianming Temple in Guiyang

Qianming Temple in Guiyang [Photo provided to guiyang.gov.cn]

Founded in the late Ming Dynasty(1368-1644), the Qianming Temple is an important site for Buddhist monks in Guiyang. It's also home to the Buddhist Association of Guizhou Province and the Buddhist Association of Guiyang City.
Since 1983, local authorities have allocated nearly 1 million yuan to restore its buildings including the Mahavira Hall (the Main Hall), the Dabei Hall, the Sutra Repository, the Guest Hall, the Dining Hall, the Office Building, and the Temple Gate. Worshippers and followers have donated to rebuild the statue of the Gautama Buddha (2.3m high) flanked by those of Anandain and the Mahakasyapa in the Mahavira Hall. 

Standing at the back wall of the hall are statues of Samantabhadra and Manjusri, surrounded by the Eighteen Arhats on both sides. In the Dabei Hall at the rear of the main hall, the Thousand Hand Bodhisattva statue, 2.85 meters in height with a sense of benevolence and virtuousness, is accompanied by Sudhanakumara and Nagakanya on both sides. 

The Guest Hall and the Kitchen are next to the Dabei Hall. The new three-story Sutra Building, with lifting eaves, houses a collection of China's Great Sutra, Dunhuang's Great Sutra, Fangshan Stone Sutra, Taiwan's Taisho Daizokyo (Great Sutra Storehouse of the Taisho era) and other Buddhist sutras in about 1,000 volumes. The lower story is for the Jade Buddha Hall, enshrining a Jade Buddha statue from Myanmar, about 1.5 meters high. Logistics service is offered, and vegetarian dishes and refreshments are available. There are more than ten resident monks living in the temple.

In 1981, the temple was listed as one of the first historical and cultural sites that enjoy municipal protection and later it became entitled to protection at the provincial level in 1983. In the same year, it was approved as a major Buddhist monastery in the Han ethnic group region by the State Administration for Religious Affairs. Over the past decade, Qianming Temple has received foreign visitors from the United States, Britain, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Canada, and Luxembourg, as well as thousands from China's Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan.

Tel: 85816732, 85827401