Foding Palace (Niushou Mountain)

Foding Palace at Niushou Mountain (牛首山) is a large Buddhist cultural complex built between 2012 and 2015 on the site of a historic temple. The main attraction is an underground palace carved into the mountain, featuring an 80-metre reclining Buddha and a display of Buddhist relics — the centrepiece being a parietal bone relic claimed to be from the historical Buddha Shakyamuni.

The above-ground complex includes two large dome-shaped golden structures visible from a distance. The mountain park surrounds them with walking trails, smaller temples, and forest. Niushou is about 20 kilometres south of the city centre, reached by metro plus a short bus ride. Despite its size, it is less visited by foreign tourists than the Purple Mountain sites — the scale is extraordinary and the underground spaces are genuinely impressive.

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A story
The underground palace is said to contain a Buddha parietal bone relic — a fragment of skull from the historical Buddha — brought to China in the 7th century and lost for centuries. When Niushou Mountain was being developed as a Buddhist cultural park, the relic was "rediscovered" and installed in an enormous underground vault beneath a hill-shaped golden dome. The relic is displayed in a bejewelled container, and a secondary hall nearby contains a monumental reclining Buddha statue.