Photo Essay: Colossal Thousand Arm Guanyin and Vibrant Murals of Guandu Temple

Established in 1712, the Guandu Temple in Beitou is a monumental Folk and Buddhist pilgrimage site overlooking the scenic Tamsui river. I won’t go into too much detail here as their English Brochure and Video Guide does a wonderful job of that.

Guandu Temple-Guidebook: Ancient Buddha Pit

In this photo essay, I endeavoured to capture the main Buddhist elements of the Temple, in the hope that the Dharma Wheel may turn. So that Buddhists from all over the world may admire in HQ form these wondrous and colossal Buddha images and murals.

Thousand Arm Guanyin

View from outside the Guanyin pavilion

Tunnel leading to Thousand Arm Guanyin pavilion

Tunnel is decorated by murals of Guanyin saving people, drawn from historical cases and the Universal Door Chapter.

Guanyin driving away demons

True story of virtuous family of devotees, eager in charity and teaching of the Dharma, having their blessings confirmed and secured by Guanyin

True story of Guanyin saving those in peril

True story of Guanyin saving high ranking Song dynasty Chinese envoy to Goryeo Kingdom (Korea) from being lost at sea

True story of people who invoked Guanyin’s name avoiding being slaughtered after their city was sacked

Manifestation of Guanyin as Deva Sovereign as per the Great Compassion mantra

Manifestation of Guanyin as Asura

Manifestation of Guanyin as Brahma King

Main hall Guanyin

Guanyin

Individual devotee contributed Guanyin images

Medicine Master Buddha

View of Tamsui River from Temple

Three Sages of the West

Guanyin

Amitabha with Mazu in front

Earth Store Bodhisattva

Five Buddha Hall

Amitabha

Mural from God of Wealth tunnel, showing the deity granting wealth to those in need. Master Chin Kung has said that the God of Wealth was Fan Li, a generous merchant who gave all his wealth away and started again from scratch, only to propser once more and then give it all away again. He did this for three times. Thus proving that to receive one must give.

All photos taken by Brian Bye Sheng Chung at the Guandu Temple, Beitou. Permission granted for Buddhist, personal and educational purposes.