Temple of Six Banyan Trees

Temple of Six Banyan Trees located on Liurong Road was early built in 537 of Liang Dynasty. As another famous Buddhist temple of Guangzhou, Liurong Temple is not far away from Guangxiao Temple. Having a long history of about 1,400 years, the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees is one of the four best Buddhist temples in Guangzhou and located on the Liurong Road (meaning the Six Banyan Trees Road). It has a rich collection of cultural-relics and is renowned both at home and abroad.

This temple was originally called the Baozhuangyan Temple, but it was ruined in fire during Northern Song Dynasty and was rebuilt in AD 989 and also renamed Jinghui Temple. In year 1100, a well known literateur and calligrapher named Su Shi traveled to this temple and saw six age-old banyan trees, so he inscribed “Liu Rong” (means six banyan trees) for this temple cheerily. And this temple has since been called the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees.

Nowadays, there are no banyan trees, but six banyan trees indeed existed about one thousand years ago, and there is still a nice pagoda. Hua Ta (Flower Pagoda) is the highlight of this Liurong Temple. This pagoda is 57 meter high with a cool structure. Flower Pagoda of Six Banyan Trees Temple consists of a viewable 9 stories, but in fact, the interior or viewing from inside actually consists of 17 layers. From this pagoda, you will get a view of interesting variety of surrounding residential housing. The largest bronze figure existed of Guangdong Province is in Liurong Temple.

The architecture that catches the visitors' eyes most is the Six Banyan Pagoda. It is a pagoda where Buddhist relics are placed. Its roofs curve upwards and look like dark red flower petals. The tip of the pagoda is like stamens, while the whole construction looks like a huge stigma high in the air. Therefore, people like to call it the Flowery Pagoda. The pagoda not only has a nice appearance, but also provides visitors a good place to overlook enchanting scenery around.

To the west of the Six Banyan Pagoda is Daxiong Baodian Hall - the main hall of the temple. The three biggest copper Buddhist statues placed there are among the biggest and most ancient Buddhist statues in Guangdong. The middle one is Sakyamuni, to the left, the Amitabha and to the right, the Apothecary Buddha. They stand for present, past and future.

Burning joss sticks is a big event when visiting there. Thus every year on the Chinese traditional Spring Festival and Lantern Festival, this place becomes a busy area. Numerous people queue to burn the first joss stick in order to be blessed by gods in the coming year.

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