The largest, longest and tallest Buddhist statues, temples and structures in the world

“There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hate, there is no trap like madness, there is no torrent like greed.” the buddha

1. The largest carved stone Buddha statue in the world

The Leshan Buddha statue is the tallest stone Buddha statue in the world, carved out of a cliff face by an 8th-century monk in the southern province of Szechuan, China. The Buddha statue dominates the intersection of the Minjiang, Dadu and Qingyi rivers and looks towards the sacred Mount Emei.

There is a local saying “The mountain is a Buddha and the Buddha is a mountain”.

This colossus represents a seated Maitreya Buddha with his hands resting on his knees, looking across the river. Maitreya is the representation of the future Buddha who will appear when the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama have been forgotten. It was popular between AD 300 and 600. C. and its images are found throughout the Buddhist world.

Construction began in AD 713 by a Chinese monk named Haitong, wishing the Buddha would calm the turbulent powers that were disturbing ships traveling down the river.

To calm the waters and save lives, Master Haitong, a Buddhist abbot from Lingyun Monastery, raised the funds and began construction on the Giant Buddha.

On December 6, 1996, it was approved by UNESCO as a World Heritage of Culture and Nature and officially inscribed on the World Heritage List.

2. The largest reclining Buddha statue in the world

The world’s largest “sleeping” Buddha statue is currently being built in Yiyang county of east China’s Jiangxi province. This massive building was started on May 1, 2002 and is 68 meters high and 416 meters long. Prior to this, the world’s longest reclining Buddha statue was only 97 meters long and was housed in the Chaukhtatgyi Temple in the Myanmar capital Yangon.

3. The largest Buddhist pagoda in the world

The largest pagoda in the world is located on the island of Gorai in Mumbai, India, and is part of the Esselworld amusement park. It has the world’s largest man-made dome along with the world’s largest rock cave. The project was initiated by the Global Vipassana Foundation, a religious foundation established to promote Buddhist teachings.

4. The largest Buddhist monument in the world

It is situated in Borobudur, which is located in Indonesia on the island of Java, and took over a hundred years to build between 750 and 850 AD.

This magnificent temple complex is made up of a three-dimensional mandala (Buddhist diagram of the universe) and is a visual representation of the Buddha’s teachings.

Sadly, it was buried in ash and lost to the world after a nearby volcano erupted for much of its existence.

The temple was rediscovered in 1814 by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, who had heard of a large, oddly shaped hill located nearby and believed by locals to be the site of an ancient temple called Budur.

In 1835 the site was cleared and a modest restoration began. This was hampered when Dutch settlers gifted 8 containers of temple relics to the King of Siam, who was visiting Indonesia at the time. Between 1973 and 1984 a major restoration program began and the site is now a major global destination for Buddhist pilgrims. In 1991 the temple and its surroundings were listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

5. The largest Buddhist temple in the world

Wat Phra Dhammakaya is a Buddhist temple located in the Khlong Luang district, Pathum Thani, north of Bangkok, Thailand. It is the largest Buddhist temple in the world, which is being designed to accommodate more than a million pilgrims and is run by what some consider to be the controversial Dhammakaya foundation. The stupa (dome) of the main temple resembles a golden UFO and is set in extensive gardens and grounds.

6. The largest wooden Buddhist temple in the world

It is the Todai-ji, a Buddhist temple located in the city of Nara, Japan. Its Great Buddha Hall is the largest wooden building in the world and houses the world’s largest statue of Vairocana Buddha. The temple has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

7. The tallest standing Buddha statue in the world

The Ushiku Amida Buddha statue is located in the city of Ushiku Arcadia in Ibaraki Prefecture, 50 km NE of Tokyo. The garden is dedicated as a place celebrating Hozo Bosatsu’s journey to become Amida Buddha.

The statues are 100 meters tall and sit on a 10-meter lotus base and a 10-meter platform, making the combined height from ground level 120 meters. The base of the statue and the lotus flower are made of steel-reinforced concrete. The body of the statue has a steel interior with a 6mm bronze plate consisting of over 6000 separate plates. There is a viewing platform inside the statue at a level of 85 meters.

It was completed in 1995 and the Ushiku Amida Buddha is the tallest statue in the world. The Buddha statue is more than three times as tall and has an internal volume thirty times that of the Statue of Liberty.

The statue weighs 4,000 tons and its index finger is seven meters long.

8. The largest jade Buddha statue in the world

This magnificent statue called The Jade Buddha for Universal Peace is 3.5 meters high and weighs 4.7 tons. The statue is based on the Buddha statue inside the Mahabodhi Stupa in Bodh Gaya, India. It was carved from an 18-ton solid jade boulder discovered in Canada in 2000 and is believed to be the largest piece of pure jade in the world.

The inspiration for the statue was the Nepalese Lama Zopa Rinpoche. He had dreamed of a sparkling Canadian jade rock before it was discovered and persuaded an Australian Buddhist, Ian Green, to carve the giant rock into a Buddha.

The rock traveled from Canada to Bangkok in Thailand and it took Thai sculptors 2 years to finally complete the statue.

The statue traveled the world and was exhibited in many countries before being placed in its permanent home at the Atisha Center’s Mahabodhi Stupa in Australia.

9. The largest solid gold Buddha statue in the world

This magnificent Buddha statue is located in the Temple of the Golden Buddha, Wat Traimit in Bangkok. The temple dates back to the 13th century and the golden Buddha statue is at least 900 years old and in the Sukhothai style.

When the Burmese were about to destroy the city of Ayutthaya, the statue was covered in plaster to hide its value from invaders. 200 years later, the statue’s origins had been forgotten and it was thought to be worth little. In 1957, the statue was being moved to another temple and was dropped during the move. That morning, a monk in the temple had an auspicious dream about the statue and went to see it for himself. Through a crack he saw a flash of yellow and was surprised to find that the Buddha statue was made of pure gold. The elegant seated Buddha statue is more than 3 meters high and weighs more than 5 tons.

10. The highest Buddhist monastery in the world

Rongbuk Monastery, Tibet China. It currently houses 30 Buddhist monks and 30 nuns; however, some 500 monks and nuns previously lived there. It is located at the foot of the Rongbuk Glacier and at 5,100 meters (17,000 feet) above sea level makes it the highest monastery in the world.