Longhua Temple and Pagoda

Longhua Temple (龙华寺, Lónghuá Sì) is the largest ancient temple complex in Shanghai, and Longhua Pagoda (龙华塔, Lónghuá Tǎ) stands just outside it, across Longhua Road. The temple, on Longhua Road in Xuhui District, is dedicated to Maitreya and laid out like a Song-dynasty Chan monastery.

Tradition dates the first temple to about 242, in the Three Kingdoms period, and links it to relics said to have been enshrined in a pagoda. That early date is legend. What the sources support is a rebuilding in 977 under the Wuyue kings, a renaming as Kongxiang Temple (空相寺) in 1064, and a return to the Longhua name in the Ming dynasty. English Wikipedia places that Ming restoration in the Wanli era and Chinese Wikipedia in the Yongle era, so the exact reign is unsettled. Most of today’s halls were put up again in the Tongzhi and Guangxu reigns, with repairs between 1875 and 1899, and the whole complex was restored in 1954.

The pagoda is older than the halls. It is a seven-storey octagonal pagoda, about 40.4 metres high, with a brick core and wooden outer parts. The main structure dates to 977, and later repairs added features not in the Song style, which were later removed and rebuilt in the Song manner. It became a national key protected site in 2006. English Wikipedia says it is fragile and closed to visitors, so you will see it from outside.

The temple covers more than 20,000 square metres, and its main axis is 194 metres long. Five halls stand along it: the Maitreya Hall, the Four Heavenly Kings Hall, the Mahavira Hall (the main hall), the Three Sages Hall and the Abbot’s Hall. A bell cast in 1586 hangs in the Mahavira Hall. The bell tower has another bronze bell, rung on New Year’s Eve; the sources give different dates for its casting.

The 20th century was hard on the site. In the Cultural Revolution the main Vairocana Buddha and its base were smashed, and a Budai statue was beheaded. The temple was listed as a Shanghai municipal protected site in 1977. Executions and civilian internment also took place on the grounds, including the 1927 purge and the Japanese camp for Allied nationals, and the Longhua Martyrs Cemetery behind the temple commemorates the victims.

A temple fair has been held since the Ming dynasty on the third day of the third lunar month, around the time the peach trees bloom.

Reach it by Line 12 and a short walk. English Wikipedia gives an entry fee of 10 yuan including incense, but no official page was found for hours or tickets, so check on arrival.