Top 10 Famous Buddhist Temples In The World
In the 5th century BC, northeastern India was the birthplace of Buddhism, a major world religion and philosophy. It is based on the ideas of Siddhartha Gautama, or The Buddha, who was born in Nepal today.
Escape from suffering and the cycle of rebirth is the aim of Buddhism: the realization of nirvana. Worldwide, there are between 230 and 500 million Buddhists. An overview of the world's most well-known Buddhist temples.
10 Famous Buddhist Temples
- Haeinsa Temple
- Wat Arun
- Pha That Luang
- Jokhang
- Todaiji Temple
- Boudhanath
- Mahabodhi Temple
- Shwedagon Pagoda
- Bagan
- Borobudur
10. Haeinsa Temple Haeinsa
One of South Korea's most significant Buddhist temples is called Haeinsa, or Temple of Reflection on a Smooth Sea. After Haiensa was destroyed by fire in 1817, the temple was first constructed in 802 and rebuilt in the 19th century. A complete copy of the Buddhist scriptures (the Tripitaka Koreana) written on 81,258 woodblocks, the temple's most valuable possession, survived the fire.
9. Wat Arun
Wat Arun, or Temple of Dawn, is one of Bangkok, Thailand's oldest and most well-known landmarks. It is on the Thonburi side of the Chao Phraya River. Mount Meru, the Buddhist cosmological center, is portrayed architecturally in the temple. Despite its name, Wat Arun is best viewed at sunset with the sun setting behind it.
8. Pha That Luang
The Great Stupa in Lao in Vientiane is one of the most significant monuments in Laos. There are multiple terraces in the stupa, with each level representing a different stage of Buddhist enlightenment. The material world is represented by the lowest level; The universe of nothingness is represented by the highest level. On the remains of an earlier Khmer temple, Pha That Luang was constructed in the 16th century. In 1828, a Siamese invasion destroyed the temple, which the French rebuilt in 1931.
7. Jokhang
READ ALSO » Top 10 Largest Temples In The World
The Jokhang Temple in Lhasa is the most sacred place in Tibetan Buddhism and is visited by thousands of pilgrims annually. King SongtsÃĪn Gampo built the temple in the 7th century. The Jokhang temple was pillaged multiple times by the Mongols, but the structure survived. The temple complex is now about 25,000 square meters in size.
6. Todaiji Temple
Nara's Todaiji Temple, also known as the Great Eastern Temple, is one of Japan's most well-known and historically significant Buddhist temples. Emperor Shomu built the temple in the 8th century to serve as the center of all of Japan's provincial Buddhist temples. The original Todaiji buildings are now mostly gone.
The majority of the Daibutsuden, or Great Buddha Hall, dates back to 1709. Even though it is only two-thirds the size of the original structure, it is the largest wooden building in the world and houses one of Japan's largest Budha statues.
5. Boudhanath
One of the world's largest stupas is Boudhanath, which can be found in a suburb of Kathmandu. As the epicenter of Tibetan Buddhism in Nepal, it has attracted a large number of Tibetan refugees in recent decades.
Most people probably know it for Buddha eyes on all four sides of the tower. After the previous stupa was demolished by Mughal invaders, it is believed that the present structure dates back to the 14th century.
4. Mahabodhi Temple
Mahabodhi Temple Bodh Gaya, India's Mahabodhi (Great Enlightenment) Temple is a Buddhist stupa. The most sacred place in Buddhism is the main complex, which houses a descendant of the original Bodhi Tree where Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment. Emperor Asoka constructed a temple there about 250 years after the Buddha attained enlightenment. The current temple was built in the 5th to 6th centuries.
3. Shwedagon Pagoda
Yangon's Shwedagon Pagoda, also known as the Golden Pagoda, is the most sacred Buddhist shrine in Burma. The history of Shwedagon is unknown, but it is believed that the Mon built the Pagoda during the Bagan period, between the 6th and 10th centuries AD. The main stupa, which is 99 meters (326 feet) tall and is completely covered in gold, is the main attraction in the temple complex, despite the abundance of glittering, colorful stupas.
2. Bagan
READ ALSO » Top 10 Most Popular Ancient Roman Temples
The largest area of Buddhist temples, pagodas, stupas, and ruins in the world can be found in Bagan Bagan, which is also spelled Pagan. It is located on the banks of the Ayerwaddy River. It was the capital of several ancient Burmese kings who built up to 4,400 temples during their reign, which lasted from 1000 to 1200 AD.
After refusing to pay Kublai Khan tribute in 1287, the kingdom was taken over by the Mongols. Bagan quickly lost its position as a political hub, but it continued to thrive as a center for Buddhist scholarship.
1. Borobudur
The world's largest and most well-known Buddhist temple can be found on the Indonesian island of Java, 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of Yogyakarta. The kingdom of Sailendra used approximately 2 million stone blocks to construct the Borobudur over a 75-year period in the 8th and 9th centuries. It was abandoned in the 14th century for reasons that are still a mystery, and it hid in the jungle beneath volcanic ash for centuries.
