In ancient times, there was a saying that "the upper dynasty Emei, the lower dynasty Lingyun", the world-famous Leshan Giant Buddha carved on the rock wall at the confluence of the Min River, Tsing Yi River and Dadu River, and sat on the statue of Maitreya. The Buddha statue was excavated in the early years of Tang Xuanzong (713 AD), it was Haitong monk to reduce the water potential, Pudu sentient beings and initiated the recruitment of manpower, material resources to repair and chisel, to the completion of the 19th year of Dezong Zhenyuan (803 AD), which lasted 90 years.

On December 6, 1996, the Leshan Giant Buddha in the --- of Emei Mountain was approved by UNESCO as a "World Cultural and Natural Heritage" and officially included in the "World Heritage List".

The big Buddha is well-proportioned, the spirit is solemn, it is chiseled by the mountain, and it sits in danger near the river. The big Buddha is 71 meters high, the head is 10 meters wide, the hair bun is 1021, the ears are 7 meters long, the nose is 5.6 meters long, the eyebrows are 5.6 meters long, the eyes are 3.3 meters long, the shoulder width is 28 meters, the fingers are 8.3 meters long, the instep is 8.5 meters wide, it can sit more than 100 people, it is praised by the poet as "the mountain is a Buddha, the Buddha is a mountain", and it is the world's first Buddha (the world's largest stone carving Maitreya Buddha sitting statue). On the left side of the Big Buddha, along the "cave sky" down is the beginning of the Lingyun plank road, with a total length of nearly 500 meters. On the right is the nine-curved plank road.

According to the Tang Dynasty Wei Gao's "Jiazhou Lingyun Buddha Statue" and the Ming Dynasty Peng Rushi's "Rebuilding Lingyun Temple" and other books, the Buddha statue was excavated in the early year of Tang Xuanzong (713) and completed in the 19th year of Tang Dezong's Zhenyuan (803), which lasted 90 years. For more than 1,000 years, the Leshan Giant Buddha has read how many worlds* and experienced many dynastic changes, and it is still solemn and kind, and its heart is unshakable.

The initiator of the excavation of the Leshan Giant Buddha is the monk Haitong. Haitong is a native of Guizhou, left his hometown and came to Leshan Lingyun Mountain to become a monk. Lingyun Mountain is the place where the three rivers converge, whenever the flood season, the flash flood breaks out, the flood is like a wild horse that has escaped, rampage, often destroys the farmland, capsizes the boat.

In order to subdue the river, the monk Haitong was determined to dig a big Buddha to suppress the water demon. First, there is the issue of funding. In order to raise funds, the monk Haitong went around fasting, accumulating a lot, and after several years of hard work, he finally solved this problem. On the day of the excavation, all eyes were on it, but the local officials took the opportunity to make things difficult, claiming that they would not be allowed to start construction if they would collect construction and protection fees. Monk Haitong was very angry and said categorically: "You can take away my eyeballs, but you can't take away the Buddha's wealth!" The magistrate said with a mocking look on his face, "If you really give us eyeballs, we don't want your Buddha wealth!" Monk Haitong immediately took out a sharp knife, gouged out his eyes, caught it with a plate, and held it in front of the officials. The magistrate was so shocked that he fled the scene. Monk Haitong endured the severe pain, and with a wave of his hand, the Buddha was immediately excavated. After the death of the monk Haitong, his apprentice led the craftsmen to continue to build, after 90 years of efforts, the Leshan Giant Buddha finally stood at the confluence of the Min River, the Dadu River and the Tsing Yi River.

Leshan Giant Buddha head and mountain Qi, foot on the river, hands touch the knees, more than 70 meters high, head height of about 15 meters, the head can be placed on the round table. The ears are 7 meters long, the eyes are 3.3 meters long, and two big men can stand in the middle of the ears. With a shoulder width of 28 meters, it can be used as a basketball court. It can also sit more than 100 people on the instep, and it is a real giant.

A few years ago, some tourists found that the mountain behind the Leshan Giant Buddha is like a sleeping Buddha, and the Leshan Giant Buddha is just built in the heart of the sleeping Buddha, and the meaning is more profound.

The world's largest Buddha, the Leshan stone carved Maitreya seated statue, is famous at home and abroad for its majestic and majestic momentum. When people look at this 90-year-old 71-meter-high Buddha statue of the Tang Dynasty, they often only see the appearance of being carved from the mountain, and see him sitting with his hands on his knees, but they can't really see the structure of his parts. In fact, it is very interesting to study his physical structure in detail.

The curls are made of stones

There are a total of 1,021 snails on the top of the Buddha, which were counted by chalk number when it was repaired in 1962. From a distance, the bun and the head are integrated, but in fact, they are embedded with stones one by one. The root of a single screw is exposed, there are obvious inlay cracks, and there is no mortar bonding. The surface of the snail is plastered in two layers, and the inner layer is lime, each with a thickness of 5-15 mm. During the repair in 1991, 3 pieces of conch stones were found in the recess of the right leg of the Buddha statue, two of which were relatively complete, 78 cm long, 31.5×31.5 cm at the top, and 24×24 cm at the root.

The ears are made of wood

There is a hole about 25 centimeters deep in the root of the earlobe of the Buddha's right ear, from which the maintenance workers took out a lot of broken objects and looked closely at the rotten wooden mud. This shows that Fan Chengda of the Southern Song Dynasty recorded in the "Wu Boat Record" that "the Buddha statue in the world is so big that the ears are still made of wood", which is true. It can be seen from this that the 7-meter-long Buddha ear is not hewn from the original rock, but is made of wooden pillars as a structure, and then plastered with hammer plaster decoration. A hole was also found at the lower end of the nostrils of the Buddha, and three pieces of wood were exposed inside, making a glyph. It shows that the raised nose bridge is also lined with wood and decorated with hammered ash. However, this was the case when the Tang Dynasty was completed in the 19th year of Zhenyuan (803), or whether it was repaired by later generations with this process, which is no longer verifiable.

Drainage system cloth all over the body

The Qing Dynasty poet Wang Shizhen has a poem about the Giant Buddha of Yongle Mountain, "The spring flows from the ancient Buddha's bun". In the 18 layers of snails at the head of the Buddha, there is a horizontal drainage ditch on the 4th, 9th and 18th floors, which are respectively modified with hammer ash masonry, and cannot be seen from afar. There are also gutters in the collar and folds, and there is a dissolving gutter on the left side of the chest, which is connected to the gutter on the back of the right arm. Behind the two ears against the mountain cliff, there are 9.15 meters long, 1.26 meters wide, 3.38 meters high left and right communication caves; there is a hole at both ends of the dorsal side of the chest, which is not chiseled through each other, the right hole is 16 deep and has a hole each, and the right hole is 16.5 meters deep, 0.95 meters wide and 1.35 meters high, and the left hole is 8.1 meters deep, 0.95 meters wide and 1.1 meters high. These wonderful ditches and caves, constitute a scientific drainage, moisture insulation and ventilation system, for thousands of years to protect the Buddha, to prevent erosive weathering, played an important role in the two holes of the left and right interconnected, because of the mountain spring, the inner cliff wall condensed about 5-10 cm thick calcareous compound, and the Buddha side of the cliff is still red sand original rock, and relatively dry. The two caves that are not open to the left and right, the hole wall is wet, the bottom is waterlogged, and the hole mouth is constantly flowing out, so the chest of the Buddha is about 2 meters wide with a water-soaked belt. Obviously, this is due to the fact that the hole is not penetrated. I don't know why the builders didn't open it up back then.

There is a remnant monument on the chest

According to Huang Gaobin and Rob, who were in charge of the maintenance in 1962, it was found that there was a closed hole in the chest of the Buddha. Open the hole to see, it is filled with scrap iron, dilapidated lead skin, bricks, etc., and the sealing stone is actually the chronicle remnant of the Song Dynasty to rebuild the Tianning Pavilion after the completion of the Tang Dynasty Buddha, there was a wooden pavilion to cover and protect, so as not to be exposed to the sun and rain. From the many pillar bases and pile holes remaining on the knees, legs, arms, chests and insteps of the Buddha, it is clear that there was a big Buddha pavilion. The Song Dynasty rebuilt it, called "Tianning Pavilion", and later destroyed. But I don't know what year, for what reason, the chronicle of this Tianning Pavilion is actually embedded in the chest of the Buddha, the mystery of the ages, who can solve it? The repairers moved the remnant of the monument to the Haishi Cave for preservation, but unfortunately it was destroyed in 1966.

(From the website: http:///submenu/dfjq-lsdf.html)

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Leshan Giant Buddha

In December 1996, the Emei-Leshan Giant Buddha was included in the World Heritage List by the UNESCO Heritage Committee.

Leshan Giant Buddha is located in Leshan City, 31 kilometers east of Emei Mountain, according to Lingyun Mountain Qixia Peak Linjiang cliff chiseled, also known as Lingyun Giant Buddha, Maitreya sitting statue, is the most famous landscape in Dongshan.

The Leshan Giant Buddha was excavated in the early years of Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty (713 AD). At that time, the three rivers of Minjiang, Dadu and Tsing Yi River converge here, and the water flow rushes straight to the foot of Lingyun Mountain, which is unstoppable, and the water is more fierce in the flood season, and the passing ships often touch the wall and smash. The famous monk Haitong of Lingyun Temple was very uneasy when he saw this, so he initiated the idea of building a big Buddha, one made the stone fall into the river to slow down the water potential, and the other borrowed the Buddha power to control the water. Haitong raised funds for 20 years and raised a sum of money, when a magistrate came to ask for a bribe, Haitong angrily reprimanded: "The eyes can be taken by themselves, and the Buddha's wealth is rare!" Then "choose your own eyes and hold the plate". After the death of Haitong, Jiannan Sichuan West Jiedu made Wei Gao, recruited craftsmen, continued to excavate, and the imperial court also gave salt and hemp taxes to subsidize, which lasted 90 years and the Buddha was finally completed.

At 71 meters tall, it is the tallest Buddha in the world. The head of the big Buddha is 14.7 meters long, the head is 10 meters wide, the shoulder width is 24 meters, the ear is 7 meters long, two people can stand side by side in the ear, the instep is 8.5 meters wide, more than 100 people can sit, known as "the Buddha is a mountain, the mountain is a Buddha".

The big Buddha is carved according to the mountain road of Lingyun Mountain, facing the confluence of the Min River, the Dadu River and the Tsing Yi River, the shape is **, although it has been through thousands of years of wind and frost, it still sits on the bank of the surging Min River. When people look at the world's largest Buddha, they often only see the appearance of the carved mountain, and see his posture sitting with his hands on his knees, but they can't really see his part structure. In fact, it is very interesting to study his physical structure in detail.

The Leshan Giant Buddha has a set of cleverly designed and hidden drainage system, which plays an important role in protecting the Giant Buddha. In the 18 layers of snails at the head of the Buddha, there is a horizontal drainage ditch on the 4th, 9th and 18th floors, which are respectively decorated with hammer ash masonry, and cannot be seen from a distance. There are also gutters for the collar and folds, and there are ditches on the left side of the chest that connect with the ditch behind the right arm. Behind the two ears against the cliff, there are caves that communicate left and right; There is a hole at both ends of the back side of the chest, but they are not chiseled through each other, the hole wall is wet, the bottom is waterlogged, and the hole mouth is constantly flowing out, so the chest of the Big Buddha has a water immersion belt about 2 meters wide. These ditches and caves form a scientific system of drainage, moisture insulation and ventilation to prevent the erosion of the Big Buddha.

Along the ridge cloud plank road on the left side of the Big Buddha, you can directly reach the bottom of the Big Buddha. Looking up at the Big Buddha here, you will feel like you are looking up. There is a nine-song ancient plank road on the right side of the seated statue. The plank road is excavated along the cliff on the right side of the Buddha statue, which is extremely steep and incomparable, and it takes nine twists and turns to reach the top of the plank road. This is the right side of the head of the Big Buddha, which is the top of Lingyun Mountain. Here you can see the carving of the head of the Big Buddha. There are 1,021 snails on the top of the Buddha. From a distance, the bun and the head are integrated, but in fact, they are embedded with stones one by one.

On the inside of the root of the earlobe of the right ear of the Buddha, there is a hole about 25 centimeters deep, and the Buddha's ear is 7 meters long, which is not carved from the original rock, but is made of wooden pillars as a structure, and then plastered with hammer ash to decorate. Holes were also found at the lower end of the nostrils of the Buddha, revealing three pieces of wood, and the finished glyph was found. It shows that the raised nose bridge is also lined with wood and decorated with hammered ash.

There is a closed hole in the chest of the Buddha. The sealing stone is the remnant of the chronicle of the Song Dynasty to rebuild the Tianning Pavilion. The cave contains scrap metal, worn lead, bricks, etc. It is said that after the completion of the Tang Dynasty Buddha, a wooden pavilion was built to cover and protect it from the sun and rain. From the remnants of many pillar bases and pile holes on the ridges of the big Buddha, legs, arms, chests and insteps, it is clear that there was a big Buddha pavilion. It was rebuilt in the Song Dynasty and called "Tianning Pavilion", which was later destroyed. The repairers moved the remnant of the monument to the Haishi Cave for preservation, but unfortunately it was later destroyed.

Behind the right side of the head of the Big Buddha is the Lingyun Temple, commonly known as the Big Buddha Temple, built in the Tang Dynasty. There are three major buildings in the temple, such as the Tianwang Palace, the Daxiong Hall and the Tibetan Scripture Building.

In the hundreds of years since the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Buddha has been eroded by natural wind and rain, so that the Buddha's body is full of holes and unrecognizable. In 1962, the Chinese government allocated special funds for the comprehensive repair of the Buddha statue, and its dignified and delicate true appearance was rediscovered. At present, under the guidance of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee and cultural relics protection experts at home and abroad, the further maintenance and protection of this world Buddha, which has stood for more than 1,200 years, is being carried out step by step.

The shape of the Buddha is **, the design is ingenious, the drainage facilities are hidden, so that it has gone through thousands of years of wind and frost, and still sits on the bank of the surging river, quietly watching the vicissitudes of the world, with high artistic value and rich cultural connotation, it is the cultural treasure of the Chinese nation, and it is the precious heritage of world history and culture.

(From the website: http:///geography/shijieyichan/sanji/leshan.html)