Guanghua Temple is one of the 8 temples constructed around Longmen Stone Cave by the Northern Wei Dynasty in the Fujian province of China. The actual distance from the cave is around 500 m.

The temple was constructed in 558 and its first master was Jinxian. As a result of this, the temple was also known as the Jinxian Court. The year 589 saw some expansion work done in the temple under the supervision of Master Shanwuwei. The temple was also rechristened Jinshan Monastery. More renonation work in the temple was carried out during the reign of the Ming and the Qing dynasty.


The temple housed around 60 monks in the year 1949, however the cultural revolution of 1965 took its toll on the temple and it was forcibly closed down. The deities and the statues of the temple were broken down and the monks had to leave the temple premises.

Reconstruction work on the temple began in December 1980. In 1983, the 36-year-old Master Yiran assumed the role of the head monk of the temple and later, in 1990, the 24-year-old Master Xuecheng replaced him.

As of today, the temple is open for public on the 1st and 15th of every lunar month. The maon structures inside the tempple include Gaoshan Gate, Tianwang Palace, Jialan Palace, Sanzang Palace and Dizang Palace. Apart from this, there is also a 10 m srone staircase with 199 steps infront of the temple.


Fujian
Fujian is a south east province of the China. It is mostly mountainous and is traditionally described to be "8 parts mountain, 1 part water, and 1 part farmland". The main cities of this province include Fuzhou (Foochow) , Xiamen (Amoy), Quanzhou, Zhangzhou and Putian. The temple of Guanghua is located in the Putian. The best time to visit Putian is in between the months of April to December.


Other Attractions

• Sakya Buddhist Pagoda : Standing on the east side of the Guanghua Temple, the Sakya Buddhist Pagoda was supposedly constructed in the year 1165 during the rule of the Southern Song Dynasty. The 36 m high Pagoda has five storeys and is distonctly different from other pagodas of the Fujian province. For example, the stone staircase inside is wide enough to allow the you to go up and down the pagoda extremely conveniently. The pagoda has a lot of carvings. The first floor has doors on the east and the west sides while on the other sides, there are niches with statues of Buddha inside them. Also, on both sides of doors and niches are sculptured images of Buddhist disciples, bodhisattvas, arhats and Kasyapa and Ananda, Buddha's two principal disciples. From the second to the fifth floor, there are doors on four sides and niches for Buddhist statues on the others. The sides of the door have carved images of celestial guards while the sides of the niches have images of bodhisattvas.