Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery

Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery
Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery
	Statues along the stairs leading to the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery
Traditional Chinese	萬佛寺
Hanyu Pinyin
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	wan4 fo2 si4
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutping	maan6 fat6 zi6

Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery (Man Fat Tsz) is a Buddhist temple in Sha Tin, Hong Kong. It is located at 220 Pai Tau Village, Sha Tin. It is not an actual monastery as there are no resident monks and is managed by laypersons.

Historic background

In 1951, Venerable Yuet Kai (Chinese: 月溪法師; pinyin: yuè xī), a devout Buddhist layman founded the Monastery,^[1] coming to Hong Kong in 1933. He preached Buddhism in a local monastery. He planned to establish a Buddhist college when he accepted an estate from a pious Buddhist who was also a rich merchant. The Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery was constructed at the beginning of 1949. Despite his old age, Yuet Kai carried the buildings materials personally from the foot of the mountain together with his disciples to build the monastery. It took eight years to complete all the buildings and another ten years to finish the 12,800 Buddha statues. Construction was finished in 1957.^[2] Today, his preserved body is presented in the main hall of the monastery in a glass case.

The Main Temple and the Pagoda of the Monastery are graded as Grade III Historic Buildings due to their historic significance.^[3]

Facilities

The monastery, which occupies over 8 hectares, is made up of two groups of architectural structures at lower and higher levels respectively. There is a pagoda, a hall, two pavilions and a tower in the architectural structure at the lower level. There are four halls in another structure at the higher level.^[2]

The five halls in the monastery are used to house the statues of Buddhas.^[2]

The main journey up to the monastery is an attraction itself, as the path is lined on both sides with golden Buddhas, each unique and in different poses.