The Leshan Giant Buddha, also known as the Lingyun Giant Buddha, is called “Lingyun Temple Maitreya Stone Statue in Jiazhou”. It is located on the east bank of the Minjiang River in the south of Leshan City, Sichuan Province, next to the Lingyun Temple, near the confluence of the Dadu River, Qingyi River and Minjiang River. The Buddha is a seated Maitreya Buddha, 71 metres high, and is the largest cliff-carved statue in China. The Leshan Giant Buddha was carved in the first year of the Kaiyuan Period of the Tang Dynasty (713) and completed in the nineteenth year of the Zhenyuan Period (803), which took about ninety years.
The head of the Leshan Giant Buddha is as high as the mountain, 14.7 metres high and 10 metres wide, with 1,051 hair buns and 7 metres long ears. It is carved into a mountain and sits on the river, with a solemn and majestic deity. On the cliffs along the river on both sides of the Buddha, there are two guardian kings over 16 metres tall. There is a nine-curve ancient plank road on the right side of the Buddha. It was a construction and worship path left behind when the Buddha was carved in the Tang Dynasty. It was carved along the cliff, with nine twists and turns and extremely steep. After the Buddha was carved, a 7-story pavilion was built to cover it (there are also 9 or 13 stories), which was called “Big Buddha Pavilion” and “Big Elephant Pavilion”. But the pavilion was built and destroyed many times. The Leshan Giant Buddha is the crystallization of the wisdom of the ancient Chinese working people and a miracle in the history of world culture.
On August 16, 1956, the Leshan Giant Buddha was announced as a Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Unit by the Sichuan Provincial People's Committee. On February 23, 1982, the Leshan Giant Buddha was announced as the second batch of national key cultural relics protection units by the State Council of the People's Republic of China.