Jade Buddha Temple

The Jade Buddha Temple (玉佛禅寺, Yùfó Chán Sì) is a working Buddhist temple on Anyuan Road in Putuo District, built around two jade Buddhas that came from Burma. It is one of Shanghai’s four great Buddhist temples, and the main reason to visit is the seated jade Buddha upstairs.

The story of the statues has two versions. Chinese Wikipedia says the monk Huigen (慧根) of Mount Putuo had five jade Buddhas made in Burma from 1882 and brought them back in 1899. Two stayed in Shanghai, a seated Shakyamuni and a reclining one, and a first temple was built for them near Jiangwan station in 1900. English Wikipedia says instead that an overseas Chinese resident of Burma, Chen Junpu, donated the statues to Huigen. Both agree on the monk, the route through Burma, and that the first temple was at Jiangwan.

That temple did not last. Troops occupied it during the 1911 Revolution, and its site was bombed in the 1932 fighting. The present temple was begun by the monk Kecheng (可成) in 1918 and took ten years, finishing in 1928. The sources differ on how much the Qing official Sheng Xuanhuai (盛宣怀) had to do with the move, so this page does not credit him with the site.

In 1942 the Shanghai Buddhist Institute opened here. It closed in 1949 and was re-established at the temple in 1983. In the Cultural Revolution the two jade Buddhas and many relics came through undamaged, and Chinese Wikipedia calls it the only Buddhist temple in Shanghai to survive whole. English Wikipedia adds that monks pasted posters of Mao on the outside to keep attackers away. Religious use resumed in 1978. In 2017 the Grand Hall was shifted sideways on rails because of fire, traffic and crowding hazards.

The layout runs north from the street. First comes the Chamber of Four Heavenly Kings, then the Grand Hall with three gilded Buddhas (Shakyamuni, Amitabha and Bhaisajyaguru), twenty devas and eighteen arhats. The Jade Buddha Chamber is on the second floor at the north end. The seated jade statue there is 1.95 metres high, and the reclining jade Buddha is smaller. A much larger marble reclining Buddha, donated from Singapore, stands elsewhere in the temple and is often mistaken for the original.

Jiangning Road station on Line 13 is the nearest metro stop. Third-party sites give opening hours of about 08:00 to 16:30 and a small extra fee for the Jade Buddha chamber, but no official page was found, so check at the gate before you go.