The mountain is a Buddha, and the Buddha is a mountain. Leshan Giant Buddha is located at the foothills of Lingyun Mountain in the east of Leshan City, close to mountains and rivers. The Buddha is 71 meters high, has a shoulder width of 28 meters, an ear length of 7 meters, and a nose length of 56 meters. More than 100 people can sit on the instep alone. This is the largest stone Buddha statue in the world so far.
Leshan is the earliest Buddhist holy place in Sichuan. During the Tang Dynasty, there were temples on the nine peaks of Leshan Lingyun. The construction of Leshan Giant Buddha was initiated by monk Haitong from Lingyun Temple on Lingyun Mountain. Lingyun Mountain is located at the intersection of Qingyi River and Minjiang River. The river is so fast that boats often capsize and people die. Monk Haitong saw the tragic situation and decided to cut the Buddha to suppress the demon and eliminate the flood. He braved the wind and rain, went through all kinds of hardships, and begged for 20 years before he was able to raise a considerable amount of funds. Before the Buddha statue was built, some county officials came to exploit Haitong's accumulated money. Haitong said angrily: "You can gouge out your own eyes, but Buddha's wealth is rare!" The county official threatened that in the future, Haitong would immediately kill himself and give him a plate. Soon, before the giant Buddha was finished, monk Haitong passed away. Later, Wei Gao, the military governor of Jiannan and Western Sichuan, recruited craftsmen to continue the excavation, and the imperial court also issued an edict to provide financial support from salt and hemp taxes. In this way, the construction of the Leshan Giant Buddha in the early year of Tang Xuanzong's founding (713) took 90 years and was not completed until the 19th year of Tang Zhenyuan (803). After the giant Buddha was carved, it was covered with a 13-story pavilion and the entire building was painted, but it was later destroyed by war.
The Maitreya Buddha in Leshan is graceful and solemn, which is different from the laughing Maitreya Buddha in other temples. Buddhist scriptures say that Sakyamuni predicted during his lifetime that more than 5.7 billion years after his death, Maitreya Buddha would descend to the world and succeed him as Buddha. In the Later Liang Dynasty of the Five Dynasties, there was a big-bellied monk named Qi Ji in Fenghua, Zhejiang, who claimed to be the reincarnation of Maitreya, and Buddhists believed him to be true. Therefore, the Maitreya Buddha after five generations all smiles, and they are all based on the image of this monk. The Leshan Giant Buddha was completed as early as the Tang Dynasty, so its expression is the same as other Buddhas, dignified, kind and solemn.