Daxiangguo Temple

Daxiangguo Temple, founded in 555 CE and rebuilt repeatedly over its fourteen centuries, is one of Kaifeng's most important religious sites and the most historically significant. During the Northern Song dynasty it functioned as an imperial temple of the highest rank, receiving emperors and hosting state ceremonies; at its peak the monastic community ran to several thousand monks. The main hall that survives today is a Qing rebuilding on the Song foundations, impressive in scale and housing the temple's centrepiece: a four-faced bronze Guanyin carved from a single ginkgo trunk, her thousand arms radiating in an extraordinary sculptural statement of compassion.

The surrounding courtyard complex has been carefully restored. The Luohan Hall contains a set of five hundred painted luohan figures in characterful individual poses — a popular Qing-dynasty exercise in artistic variety that rewards slow looking. Entry is ¥40. The temple is in the heart of old Kaifeng and makes a natural starting point for a walk through the historic centre; the streets immediately around it retain some of the feel of an older city despite the tourist-facing renovation.

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In the Song dynasty, Daxiangguo Temple was one of the most important monasteries in China — the place where emperors came to pray for rain, where state ceremonies were performed, and where a spectacular lantern festival filled the courtyards every year. The poet Su Shi worshipped here; the monk Lu Zhishen of Water Margin fame supposedly served as a vegetable gardener in the surrounding gardens. Founded in 555 CE, the temple has been destroyed and rebuilt eight times; what you see is largely Qing-dynasty work on Song foundations.

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