Guan Dou Mountain situated between Hua Pan Mountain and Luo Han Mountain in Gaotian Town which in the northeastern direction of Weixin County, is about 40 kilometers away. Some of the students who study in China may hear that it got the name because Wu Sangui ever been there to viewing the stars (guan dou). With a high altitude of 1,880 meters, Guan Dou Mountain is grand and magnificent and densely covered by all kinds of trees.
As a matter of fact, the original construction work in Guan Dou Mountain was in Ming Dynasty, after experiencing Qing Dynasty and Republic of China period, some temples were built in the surrounding mountains centering on it. According to the record in the stone tablet, the temples were destroyed for several times and the last time of reconstruction was in the early period of the Republic of China. Taking a period of 30 years, the nine magnificent halls were repaired until 1949.
Among the nine reconstructed halls, the ones that the foreigners who often see when they learn Chinese in China are Goddess of Mercy Hall, Guansheng Hall, Queen Mother of West Hall and Maitreya Hall. Al the halls are facing to the west and spread on Guan Dou Mountain layer by layer. In total, the whole halls cover an area of 6200 square meters. Most halls were destroyed during the ten years’ disturbance and only the lanes, stages and some stone tablets are remained.
There are totally eight remained stone tablets, 63 stone statues of Goddess of Mercy, Guan Yu, the Queen Mother of West, Four Grand Marshals, Four Heavenly Kings, Confucius, Sakyamuni, Laozi, Buddha Maitrya, etc. Among the statues, the statue of Buddha Maitrya is as high as five meters. The others are just a little higher than the ordinary people. In addition, you can also see some stone carvings of 14 animals such as Chinese dragon, phoenix, lion, leopard, kylin, elephant, horse, sheep and toad and so on.
The most important thing that the foreigners in intensive Chinese language courses should know is that the views in Guan Dou Mountain is the combination of the three religions, Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism, combining the religions with legends and showing large scale and rich contents. With great artistic value and ornamental value, the statues are greatly influenced by the stone carving in Sichuan in the aspect of the art.