Yonghe Lamasery

Yonghe Lamasery	Yonghe Lamasery

At the northeast corner of Beijing City the traveler will find an elegant and ancient temple known as the Yonghe Lamasery, which is the largest and most perfectly preserved lamasery in present day China. The total area of the compound calculated from the southernmost memorial archway to the lamasery’s northernmost point is 66,400 square meters.
The principal building in the rearmost courtyard and tallest building in the lamasery is the three-story Hall of Infinite Happiness (Wangfuge), also called the Hall of Great Buddha (Dafolou). Flanking it on both sides is two two-story pavilions-the Eternal Health Pavilion (Yongkangge) and the Perpetual Tranquility Pavilion (Yanningge), both connected to the central hall by overhead bridges. A huge statue of the Tathagata Buddha (Rulaifo) stands in the center of the hall. Made from the trunk of a single sandalwood tree, the standing statue is 26 meters in height (eight meters below the ground floor and 18 meters above) and eight meters in diameter. It is said that when this statue was first installed it was fitted with a yellow monk's robe made of more than 1,800 meters of satin.
The lamaseries house a treasury of Buddhist art. To mention a few of the most interesting items: examples of the calligraphy of Qing emperors written on scrolls and inscribed on stelae; bronze lions and incense burners; sculptured images of gods, demons and Buddhas; and Tibetan-style murals.