Its roof work an incongruous, shimmering mirage amid West Nanjing Rd’s soaring skyscrapers, Jìng’ān Temple is a much-restored sacred portal to the Buddhist world that partially, at least, underpins this metropolis of 24 million souls. There are fewer devotees than at the neighbourhood's popular Jade Buddha Temple, but over a decade’s restoration has fashioned a workable temple at the very heart of Shànghǎi. Its spectacular position among the district’s soaring skyscrapers makes for eye-catching photos while the temple emits an air of reverence.
Constructed largely of Burmese teak, the temple has some impressive statues, including a massive 8.8m-high, 15-tonne silver Buddha in the main Mahavira Hall ; a 3.86m-high white jade Sakyamuni in the side halls; and a five-tonne Guanyin statue in the Guanyin Hall , carved from a 1000-year old camphor tree. The temple still rattles away to the sounds of construction, while in the bunker beneath the main hall is an unfinished space, housing 18 glittering luóhàn (arhats), but little else. The complex has been designed to incorporate shops and restaurants around its perimeter (including a fantastic vegetarian restaurant at the rear), which goes around the block. The ¥50 admission charge is steep, however, for such a modest and thoroughly modern place of worship.
Khi Vehdu, who ran Jìng’ān Temple in the 1930s, was one of the most remarkable figures of the time. The nearly 2m-tall abbot had a large following as well as seven concubines, each of whom had a house and a car. During the Cultural Revolution the temple was shorn of its Buddhist statues and transformed into a plastics factory before burning to the ground in 1972.
Good times to visit include the Festival of Bathing Buddha on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month and at the full moon.
