Dabei Monastery

The Dabei Monastery (Chinese: 大悲寺; pinyin: Dàbēi Sì; lit. 'Great Compassion Temple') is a Buddhist temple in the City of Tianjin, China.

The monastery was first built during the Ming dynasty, but has been heavily rebuilt and renovated since and consists now of the West Monastery from 1669 and the East Monastery from 1940.^[1] It is the largest and oldest in town covering 10,600 m² (114,000 ft²).

West Temple and East Temple

The temple houses the Tianjin Buddhist Institute and exhibits many ancient statues. The Dabei Buddhist Monastery consists of two parts: an old monastery and a new monastery. These two parts are also known as the West Temple and the East Temple. The West Temple is the older of the two, built in 1669 during the

Kwan-yin

.

Famous Relic

The monastery was once famous for holding a skull relic of Xuanzang, however, the relic was presented to India in 1956 when it was taken to

Nalanda - allegedly by the Dalai Lama - and presented to India. The relic is now in the Patna Museum. And from then on, Great Compassion monastery takes the image of Xuanzang Master instead of the spirit bones for the worship of the Buddhist. There are memorials for Xuanzang Master and Hongyi Master in the east yard, while the west yard becomes an office for Cultural Relic Palace, Abbot Palace and Buddhist Association of China

Tianjin Branch. In the Cultural Relic Palace of the west yard, there many collections from every dynasties since Wei and Jin Period including hundreds of Buddha statues which are made of various materials from bronze, iron, stone to wood.

Vegetarian Food

Dabei Great Monastery is the only monastery in Tianjin that provides

vegetarian food to the public. Food made by the famous Tianjin Dabei Buddhist Monastery Vegetarian Food Corporation is served in the monastery, which includes Longevity Perch

present basket, soybean vegetarian, multi-vitamin-calcium noodles, deepfreeze eight precious vegetarian steamed-buns, vegetarian dumplings, etc.

Location

The address of the temple is Tianwei Road, Hebei District (河北区天纬路; Héběiqū Tiānwěilù). It is located about 2 km West of Tianjin North Railway Station and can be reached via the bus lines 1, 2, 4, 12, 18, 34, 177, 609, 609, 610, 611, 619, 632, 641, 646, 659, 670, 671, 818, 861, 878, 904 that stop at the Jingangqiao Station (金钢桥; Jīngāngqiáo) on Zhongshan Rd (中山路; Zhōngshānlù).

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "Dabei Buddhist Temple". Retrieved 12 January 2013.

[Dabei-1] "Dabei Buddhist Temple". Retrieved 12 January 2013.

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