Puning Temple

Puning Temple, known in English as the Temple of Universal Peace, stands on Puning Road in Shuangqiao District, Chengde, Hebei Province, China, a short distance north-east of the Mountain Resort. The Qianlong Emperor ordered it built in 1755 to commemorate the Qing campaign against the Dzungars and to receive Mongol nobles, and it is the best known of Chengde's Eight Outer Temples. The compound is unusual because it blends two architectural traditions in a single axis.

The front half follows a Han Chinese layout, with a gate, bell and drum towers and a sequence of courtyards and halls running north in a symmetrical line. The rear half is Tibetan in style, built on a raised terrace around a tall central hall, the Mahayana Hall, and surrounded by smaller platforms, towers and symbolic structures representing the Buddhist cosmos. Inside the Mahayana Hall stands the temple's most famous object, a gilded wooden statue of Avalokitesvara with a thousand arms and a thousand eyes, among the tallest wooden statues in the world at roughly 22 metres. Visitors circle the statue on the upper gallery levels, which gives close views of the face and the fan of carved arms.

The temple is still an active religious site, with resident monks, so quiet behaviour is expected in the halls. A visit takes one and a half to two hours. The best light for the red walls and golden roofs of the rear terrace comes in the morning, and arriving early also avoids the tour groups that move between the temple and the Mountain Resort later in the day. Crowds are heaviest on weekends and national holidays. In winter the site is calm and the monastic atmosphere is more noticeable, although the unheated halls are cold. Photography of the exterior is common, but rules inside the Mahayana Hall can restrict photographing the statue, so signage should be checked at the entrance.