Leshan Giant Buddha: Carving the World's Largest Stone Buddha

The Leshan Giant Buddha is a 71-metre seated figure of Maitreya carved into a sandstone cliff at Leshan in Sichuan, south-western China. Work began in 713 under the monk Haitong and was completed in 803, after about ninety years and several interruptions. It is the largest stone Buddha carved before modern times and, with nearby Mount Emei, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Background: Buddhism and the rivers of Sichuan

Under the Tang dynasty, Buddhism flourished across China, and Sichuan, a rich and populous province, became a major centre of Buddhist art. Monks and lay patrons carved thousands of cliff images there in the 8th and 9th centuries.

The town of Jiazhou, modern Leshan, stood at the point where the Min, the Dadu and the Qingyi rivers meet. The current at the confluence was notoriously strong, and boats carrying salt, grain and other goods down the Min towards the Yangtze were often wrecked against the cliffs of Lingyun Hill.

Maitreya, the Buddha of the future who will appear on earth to renew the teaching, was especially popular in this period. Cults around him also had political overtones: Empress Wu Zetian had been linked with Maitreya to justify her rule in 690.

Haitong begins the work (713)

According to the account carved by the later governor Wei Gao, a monk named Haitong, who lived at the Lingyun Temple on the hill, was moved by the loss of life on the river. In 713 he began raising funds to carve a giant Buddha in the cliff face, hoping that its presence would subdue the waters.

Haitong travelled widely to collect donations. A well-known legend says that when a local official tried to seize the money, the monk declared he would rather give up his eyes than the Buddha’s funds, and gouged out his own eyes; the frightened official withdrew. The story is told in Wei Gao’s inscription of nearly a century later and cannot be independently confirmed, but it shows how Haitong’s devotion was remembered.

Haitong died before the Buddha was complete. By then, it is generally said, the work had reached roughly the shoulders, carved from the top down.

Completion under the governors

After Haitong’s death the work stopped. It was resumed in the 740s or 750s with the support of Zhangchou Jianqiong, the military governor of the region, and of imperial funds, but stopped again after he left Sichuan. The An Lushan Rebellion, which began in 755, threw the empire into turmoil for years. In 756 Emperor Xuanzong himself fled from Chang’an to Chengdu in Sichuan, and the resources of the province were drawn into the long struggle to restore Tang authority.

The final stage was carried out under Wei Gao, military governor of Western Sichuan from 785 to 805, who paid for the work from his own salary and official resources. The Buddha was completed in 803. Wei Gao recorded the history of the project in an inscription, the Record of the Great Stone Image of Maitreya at Lingyun Temple in Jiazhou, which remains the main source for its construction.

When finished, the statue was painted and gilded and was protected by a great wooden pavilion of many storeys, sometimes said to have had thirteen levels. This structure was later destroyed, probably in the wars at the end of the Yuan dynasty, and the Buddha has stood in the open ever since.

How it was carved

The Buddha was cut directly from the red sandstone of the cliff, a stone soft enough to be worked with iron tools but also easily worn by water and wind. Workers seem to have begun at the head and moved downwards, standing on ledges and wooden scaffolding fixed into holes in the rock. The cut stone was thrown into the river below.

Some parts were not carved from the cliff but added. The ears were shaped from wood and covered with plaster, and the surface of the whole statue was finished with a coat of plaster or lime, then painted. Over the centuries this coating has been renewed several times during repairs.

The statue

The Buddha sits facing Mount Emei across the river, his feet resting on the riverbank and his hands on his knees. The figure is 71 metres high. The head is about 14.7 metres tall and carries 1,021 coiled curls of hair, set into the stone. The ears, about 7 metres long, are made of wood covered with clay, and the nose too was partly built up.

The carvers built a hidden drainage system into the statue. Channels behind the ears and in the folds of the hair and robe carry rainwater away and help to dry the stone, slowing weathering. Large guardian figures carved in relief on the cliff on either side of the Buddha stand about 16 metres high.

Key people

Haitong was the monk of the Lingyun Temple who conceived the project in 713 and spent years collecting funds. Zhangchou Jianqiong, a Tang military governor in the mid-8th century, revived the work. Wei Gao (745-805), military governor of Western Sichuan and a successful general against the Tibetans, completed the statue in 803 and wrote its history.

Myths and facts

A traditional claim holds that the rivers really were tamed by the statue. One common modern explanation is that the vast quantity of rock removed during carving and dropped into the river changed the currents. The idea is plausible, but there is no firm evidence for it.

The statue is often called the largest Buddha in the world. That is true of stone Buddhas carved before modern times; several twentieth- and twenty-first-century statues, such as the Spring Temple Buddha in Henan, are taller but built of other materials.

Conservation and legacy

The Leshan Giant Buddha has been restored many times. Plants growing on its surface, acid rain and the erosion of the soft sandstone have all caused damage, and major conservation campaigns have been carried out since the 1960s and especially in the 2000s and 2010s. In 1996 UNESCO inscribed it with Mount Emei as a World Heritage Site. Emei, about 30 kilometres to the west, is one of the Four Sacred Mountains of Chinese Buddhism and is associated with the bodhisattva Samantabhadra; UNESCO recognised the two together for their natural beauty and their long Buddhist history.

Today the statue is one of China’s most visited monuments. Visitors climb narrow stairs cut into the cliff beside the Buddha to reach its feet, or view it from boats on the river, as travellers have done for more than twelve centuries.

Timeline

• 713: The monk Haitong begins the carving at Lingyun Hill.
• c. 740s-750s: After Haitong’s death, Zhangchou Jianqiong revives the project.
• 755: The An Lushan Rebellion begins, and work stalls again.
• 785: Wei Gao becomes military governor of Western Sichuan.
• 803: The Buddha is completed and Wei Gao records its history.
• Probably 14th century: The wooden pavilion over the statue is destroyed.
• 1996: UNESCO inscribes Mount Emei and the Leshan Giant Buddha as a World Heritage Site.

Why it matters

The Leshan Giant Buddha is one of the greatest engineering and artistic feats of medieval China. Carved over three generations, it shows the depth of Tang Buddhist devotion, the role of local patrons in great religious projects and the practical hopes that people placed in sacred images. It remains the largest stone statue of the premodern world.