Gengma Buddhist Temple

Gengma General Buddhist Temple, located in the suburb of Gengma, Gengma County, Yunnan Province, is a Buddhist monastery of Theravada Buddhism in southern Pali language. Hanxie presided over the construction and was built by Zen Master Gengma Yatang. It is also the place where Tusi Gengma and his relatives worship Buddha, also known as Guanmen Temple. The Gengma General Buddhist Temple includes the main hall, the hall, the ordination hall, the pagoda, the monastery, the courtyard, the wall, the temple gate and other parts. The main body of the hall is a brick-wood structure. There are two rows of parallel huge wooden pillars as the main support in the hall. The outer sides of the giant pillars undertake auxiliary beams to form a partial building. The central hall and the side buildings are combined into a triple-eave building covered with blue-grey tiles. The hall is about 30 meters high, 15 meters wide and 27 meters long. The left and right corridors are about 3 meters wide, surrounded by a 1.5-meter-high low wall outside the corridor. There are also eight clay statues behind the statue of Sakyamuni Buddha at the west end of the temple. Except for the water god Wubaogu, the other eight statues are all Arhat statues. There is an additional hall outside the main entrance at the east end of the hall. In the hall, two brick pillars about 6 meters high and 6 giant wooden pillars are erected for support, and the ground is covered with blue bricks. The roof in the middle of the hall is a double eaves and a slope on one side. Above the eaves, there is a Xie Peak and two slopes. Therefore, these three slopes are just scattered between the upper eaves and the middle eaves of the main hall. In addition, the tops of the two sides of the passage hall are built with double eaves respectively, which are connected with the middle and lower eaves of the main hall. This layout makes the main hall and the hall form an overlapping and splendid appearance.