This temple is young by Chinese standards, and it exists because of one journey. In the 1880s a monk1 called Huigen travelled to Burma and brought back five Buddha images carved from a single kind of white jade2. Two of them stayed in Shanghai, and a temple was built to house them. The first building was destroyed during the upheaval at the end of the Qing dynasty, and the temple was rebuilt here, on Anyuan Road, in the 1920s.
按中国的标准，这座寺院很年轻，它的由来是一趟旅程。十九世纪八十年代，一位叫慧根的僧人到缅甸，带回五尊用同一种白玉雕成的佛像。其中两尊留在了上海，寺院是为安放它们才建起来的。最初的建筑毁于清末的动荡，二十年代寺院在安远路这里重建。
We enter through the Hall of Heavenly Kings. The round, laughing figure facing you is Maitreya, the Buddha of the future, and Chinese temples put him at the door on purpose, so that the first face a visitor meets is a welcoming one. The four large figures along the sides are the Heavenly Kings, guardians of the four directions. Behind Maitreya, facing into the temple rather than out, stands Weituo, the protector of the monastery3. Notice how he holds his staff. The position tells a travelling monk whether the temple can put him up for the night.
我们从天王殿进去。正对着你的那尊圆圆的笑着的是弥勒，未来佛。中国寺院特意把他放在门口，让人进门看到的第一张脸是欢迎的。两侧那四尊大像是四大天王，守四个方位。弥勒背后，面朝寺内而不是朝外的是韦驮，护法。留意他拿杵的姿势，那个姿势告诉云游的僧人，这座寺能不能留他过夜。
The main hall ahead is the Mahavira Hall, where the three great Buddha images sit. This hall has a story that has nothing to do with religion. The temple sits in a crowded block, and the visitor flow through this courtyard had become dangerous. So in a recent restoration the engineers did not rebuild the hall. They lifted the whole building, more than two thousand tonnes of it, and relocated4 it about thirty metres north, then raised it about a metre, all without taking it apart. The hall you are looking at is the same hall, standing in a different place.
前面那座主殿是大雄宝殿，三尊大佛就供在里面。这座殿有一段跟宗教无关的故事。寺院夹在密集的街区里，这个院子的人流一度到了危险的程度。所以近年的整修，工程师没有拆了重建，而是把整幢建筑连同两千多吨的重量整体抬起来，向北平移了三十多米，再顶升约一米，全程没有拆解。你眼前这座殿还是那座殿，只是站在了另一个位置。
Now the two images the temple is named for. Upstairs is the seated Buddha, just under two metres tall, carved from a single block of jade and shown at the moment of enlightenment. Look at the face rather than the jewels. The other is the reclining5 Buddha, less than a metre long, lying on its right side. That posture is not sleep. It is the moment of entering nirvana, and the slight smile is the point of the whole carving. Photography is not allowed in either room, so please put your phone away before we go up. We have forty minutes, and this is a working monastery, so please keep your voice low.
现在讲这座寺院得名的那两尊。楼上是坐佛，将近两米高，整块玉料雕成，表现的是成道的那一刻。请看脸，不要只看身上的珠宝。另一尊是卧佛，不到一米长，右侧卧。那个姿势讲的是入涅槃的一刻，嘴角那一点笑意才是整件雕刻的用心所在。两个殿内都不许拍照，上楼之前请把手机收起来。我们有四十分钟，这是一座在使用中的寺院，请压低声音。