Guanghua Temple is probably Putian’s biggest attraction. One of Fujian’s largest monasteries, with over 300 monks and students, it was built in 558 A.D. and rebuilt in 1875. This sprawling 16,000 square meter complex’s most off the wall feature is a stone wall that is over one kilometer long.
Guanghua Temple has a long history of printing Buddhist scriptures in China. The two granite columns in front of the temple’s main building have ancient characters that shed light on not only the ancient translation of Buddhist scriptures from Hindu to Chinese, but also on the origins of the ancient Putian and Xianyou dialects. |
