Kwun Yam Temple

CHINA, Hong Kong

Kwun Yam means Avalokitesvara. The temple is located on Lantau Island and was built in 1910 by a female devotee. The temple was expanded in 1990 under Abbot Yung Ling’s care, resulting in its present layout.
Built to integrate with the surrounding terrain, the temple occupies 8,200 sq m. The main buildings include a gate, the bell and drum towers, and the Triple Gem Hall. The style of the Triple Gem Hall was copied from the Foxiang Pavilion in the Summer Palace in Beijing. The hall is octagonal and is 24 m high. The columns and bracket sets are all painted in red, but the beams beneath the eaves are decorated with a variety of colors. The roof is covered with yellow glazed tiles with a green border. The hall is three stories high and has an octagonal pyramidal roof. The Avalokitesvara Hall, located on the first story, houses an Eleven-Headed, Thousand-Armed, and Thousand-Eyed Avalokitesvara, which is 4.9 m high. There are statues of the Sixteen Arhats on either side. There are four rare bronze reliefs on the surrounding walls depicting Avalokitesvara’s 32 other manifestations. The sutra repository is located on the second story. The Three Great Bodhisattvas are enshrined there, along with an Avatamsaka Sutra written in blood. On the third story is the circular Ten Thousand Buddha Hall, housing many thousands of Buddha statues. The main statues here are the Five Dhyani Buddhas with a 1.2 m high Vairocana Buddha seated at the center in a raised position. The other four Buddhas are Aksobhya, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, and Amoghasiddhi, each with a height of 1 m. From the top to bottom, the three stories represent the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.