Originally built in A.D. 555, this temple, one of China's more famous Buddhist shrines, had its heyday during the Song dynasty (960-1279), when there were 64 Sutra Halls on the premises. Destroyed in the flood of 1642 and rebuilt in 1766, the temple's main attraction is the magnificent four-sided statue of Avalokitesvara (the male Indian bodhisattva who became transfigured over the years into the female Guanyin), with a thousand hands and a thousand eyes (all-seeing and compassionate), who stands surrounded by 500 arhats. Weighing 2,000 kilograms (2 1/4 tons), the 7m-high (23-ft.) statue was said to have been carved from the trunk of a thousand-year-old ginkgo tree and required 58 years to complete.
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