BELOW: UPPER FAÇADE OF WANGU SI BEAMLESS HALL. PHOTO COURTESY CHRISTOPH REHAGE – TAASA Review June 2014
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This article was originally found in the June 2014 edition of TAASA Review (Volume 23, Issue 2, Page 18).
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His reputation also spread among building workers, who flocked to him whenever he undertook a new project (Ho 1996: 73). Twenty years before, during an illness, he had taken a vow that if he recovered he would give thanks to Buddha by casting gilt-bronze statues and bronze pavilions for three great bodhisattvas on the three Chinese mountains dedicated to them.
By the 1590s he was in a position to begin to fulfill this vow.
Three of his beamless halls were built in connection with these bronze pavilions. The way was opened by an invitation from another imperial relative, Prince Shen of Lu’an, who had cast a golden bronze statue of Puxian (Samantabhadra) and wished to have it installed on Emeishan, the mountain sacred to the Bodhisattva...