Qiongzhu Temple Kunming 筇竹寺
Qiongzhu Temple or Bamboo Temple is located on Yu'an Mountain, 12km north west of the city of Kunming in Yunnan Province.
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The temple originally dates from the 13th century and is a Chinese Zen temple. The temple and statues you see today mostly date from the reconstruction work of the Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty after a devastating fire destroyed most of the original structures.
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Qiongzhu Temple is known for its 19th century sculptures of the 500 Buddhist arhats or luohan (Buddhist adepts freed from the cycle of death and re-birth) sculpted by the renown Chinese artist Li Guangxiu and his five disciples. The art work proved too much for the artist's contemporaries and patrons and was his last commission.
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The clay statues, which took seven years in the making are beautifully painted and capture various personalities and states of human existence: the young and the old, the healthy and the sick, the happy and the sad.
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Some of the statues ride waves like surfers on one wall of the temple and are particularly grotesque: one has arms longer than his body, another eyebrows reaching down to his chest.
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Qiongzhu Temple is also known for its fine setting with ancient cypress trees and the grounds also contain a vegetarian restaurant for visitors. The main hall of Qiongzhu Si contains a 14th century stone tablet recording the diplomacy between Imperial China and Yunnan in Chinese and Mongolian script.
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