Brief information on Wannian Monastery  

Situated in the middle of E’mei Mountain 1000 meters above sea level, Wannian Monastery is one of the oldest temples in the mountain in Sichuan Province. It was first built in 401 AD during the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and named Puxian Monastery, and then rebuilt in 876 AD during the Tang Dynasty, changing its name to White Water Monastery. The name Wannian was given by the emperor during the Ming Dynasty when it was rebuilt in 1600, and had lastd until now without any further changes. The monastery today was rebuilt in 1991 by the local government, which added several towers and walls. At present, the Wannian Monastery is the largest monastery in E’mei Mountain.

The building structure of the monastery is unique. There is a palace named “Wuliang Palace”, which means ‘No-Beam Palace’ in Chinese, because the palace inside was built without a single plank of wood. There are decorative arches, and window lattice structure designs on the walls. On the top of the palace are paintings of five white pagodas and four auspicious animals. There are more than 2,000 Buddhist statues in the palace, the biggest of which was cast in 980 AD during the Song Dyansty, and weighs 62 tonnes with a height of 7.35 meters.

On the right side of the monastery is a rectangular lake. Legend has it that here a monk called Guangjun played the zither for Li Bai, a great poet during the Tang Dynasty, and the poet wrote a poem to commemorate the occasion.

 

*You can download the bilingual note to show it to a taxi driver or someone else to find your way to Wannian Monastery if you plan to visit Wannian Monastery and have language problems.

   

Chinese Pinyin: Wan Nian Si
Location: Mt.Emei