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Troubled history of Yufo Temple
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YUFO Temple, a Buddhist monastery in downtown Shanghai, has been around for 130 years.
The temple houses three jade Buddha statues, hence the name Yufo, which literally translates as “Jade Buddha.” Among the three statues, the cynosure of all eyes is the sitting Buddha in the Jade Buddha Hall. At 1.95-meter tall, the statue is carved out of a single piece of Burmese jade.
This sitting Buddha statue was one of the five statues brought from Burma at the end of the 19th century by Hui Gen, a monk from Mount Putuo. That Yufo Temple happens to be in Putuo District today is a fitting coincidence.
After Hui Gen returned with the statues in 1882 after his pilgrimage to Tibet, he had a temple built near Zhanghuabang, a river in the northeast of Shanghai, and died shortly after.
In 1918, Ke Cheng, abbot of the monastery at that time, initiated the construction of a new temple at the intersection of the then Penang and Gordon roads. Construction went on for ten years, and in 1943, as Shanghai’s foreign concessions were handed to the Wang Jingwei government, Penang Road and Gordon Road were renamed Anyuan and Jiangning, respectively.
In the late 1960s, there was major upheaval due to the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). When the Red Guards ravaged major cultural and religious sites, which they deemed “anti-proletarian,” Yufo Temple was not spared: the monastery was disbanded, its monks sent elsewhere.
In 1969, Yufo Temple’s Abbot Wei Hang died and Zhen Chan, one of the few monks who stayed behind, strived to protect the temple’s scriptures and relics by concealing or camouflaging them.
Thanks to Zhen, the temple’s two jade statues and other relics remained intact. Yufo Temple began to resume its normal activities in the spring of 1978. Zhen Chan, who had become abbot of the monastery by then, managed to locate and reassemble many of the monks who were forced to leave the temple during the Cultural Revolution.
In 1990, the temple added a Reclining Buddha Hall with a 4-meter-long jade Buddha statue from Singapore.
The temple is home to the Hong Yi Library, which was founded in 1943 by a group of Chinese literati, including painter Feng Zikai, writers Xia Mianzun and Ye Shengtao, to commemorate Master Hong Yi (Li Shutong), who had died a year earlier.
A prominent art educator before he chose to be ordained as a monk in 1918, Hong Yi was one of the first pioneers to introduce Western painting, music and drama to China.
After becoming a monk, he continued to practice calligraphy only.
Covering 300 square meters, the Hong Yi Library has a collection of over 20,000 books, including more than 10 different editions of the Chinese Buddhist canon, as well as Hong Yi’s original manuscripts. The library is open to Buddhists and non-believers alike.
Editor’s note
During the early 20th century, Shanghai was the largest and most prosperous city in the Far East — and one of the wildest. Though the city wasn’t the largest in the country in terms of space, it was often referred to as “Big Shanghai” by out-of-towners due to its unique traits and sophisticated culture. A fascinating mix of East and West, this column based on Shanghai writer Ma Shanglong’s “Made in Shanghai” looks at what the city is made of, from old lane houses and long gone transportation to typical food and fashion.
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