The secrets behind the Maitreya Bodhisattva statue on Ba Den mountain

Masterpiece on the sacred mountain

You can go to the top of Lang Van mountain (Sichuan, China) to admire the world's largest Maitreya Buddha statue carved into the cliff of The Loan mountain; go to the Golden Buddha Temple in Bangkok (Thailand) to admire the world's largest solid gold Buddha statue. Buddhist structures that bring a feeling of overwhelming giantness and grandeur like that are not rare in the world.

However, a Buddhist structure that is elaborately and even unimaginably restored to become an architectural masterpiece, a miracle of architecture and construction - is not easy to come across in life.

Such a rare masterpiece now resides right in Vietnam, on top of Ba Den Mountain - the roof of the South - a sacred mountain associated with legends and miracles.

The statue of Bodhisattva Maitreya is located at an altitude of over 900m on the top of Ba Den mountain.

Going back in time to mid-2022, when receiving the task of supervising and constructing the Maitreya Bodhisattva statue made from 6,688 sandstone stones, each with a unique size and shape, everything seemed beyond the imagination of the staff of the Tay Ninh Project Management Board of Sun Group. The project is located on the top of the watershed with a steep terrain of Ba Den Mountain, the water flow flows through the terrain, creating divisions and changing the geological state.

Below is the Wish Bridge.

"When surveying the geological terrain, I could not imagine how to create a giant statue weighing more than 5,000 tons, on a challenging terrain with many orphaned rocks, and we only had less than 300 days to solve this problem. It was almost... an impossible mission," Tran Duc Hoa recalled his initial skepticism about the project.

300 days for a seemingly "impossible" mission

The rainy season in Tay Ninh seems to be endless for Tran Duc Hoa, Head of the Tay Ninh Project Management Board of Sun Group Corporation and the construction team of the Maitreya Bodhisattva Statue, because of the constant fear of landslides on the 60-degree slope and the challenge of turning more than 5,000 tons of sandstone into a masterpiece on top of Ba Den Mountain.

The process of making statues is extremely complicated in the harsh weather conditions of the highlands.

Those were the days of July and August 2023, Tay Ninh was in heavy rain, the statue of Bodhisattva Maitreya was gradually taking shape. The top of Ba Den mountain was crowded with visitors coming to hunt for rare cloud phenomena. Rainbow clouds, phoenix clouds, sea of ​​clouds, and most of all, the phenomenon of lenticular clouds forming a giant white cone covering the top of the mountain, looking from afar like an alien flying saucer landing on the roof of the South.

"The more clouds there were, the more magical they were, the greater our worries were," Tran Duc Hoa recalled. The most beautiful cloudy days were also the rainiest days, even with thunderstorms and gusts of wind. Cold, wet, foggy, landslides, slippery, the wind blew against the cliffs. The harsh weather and terrain did not meet the safety conditions for construction, but also required careful calculation, an extreme precision when creating the statue. Even a small mistake of 1 centimeter could "wash away" all efforts and even cause landslides of existing structures.

Behind the masterpiece of the world's largest Maitreya Bodhisattva statue on the mountain top is an extremely elaborate creation process that not everyone can imagine.

According to the construction unit's calculations, a world-class Buddhist monument located on a mountain peak over 900m high will take at least 2 years to complete, and of which the stone carving and finishing steps alone will take 400 days. However, this monumental project is required to be completed at lightning speed in just... 9 months, so that on the first days of the new year 2024, visitors can worship the Maitreya Bodhisattva representing the future, joy and happiness when coming to the sacred Ba Den mountain peak.

"There were times when we had to mobilize 600 - 700 people on the construction site, all stages had to be done continuously, overlapping each other to keep up with the progress. We also continuously worked overtime, working 24/7 to keep up with the work progress" - Mr. Tran Duc Hoa said.

When surveying the geological terrain, I could not imagine how to create a giant statue weighing more than 5,000 tons, on a challenging terrain with a lot of orphan rocks, and we had less than 300 days to solve this problem. It was almost an… impossible mission.

Mr. Tran Duc Hoa, Head of Tay Ninh Project Management Board, Sun Group Corporation

Tunnel to Uoc Bridge to worship the statue

The pile options were selected, the pile drilling machine of more than 100 tons was used, the stepped structural measures were applied, the machinery and equipment were moved in the direction of the wind to ensure safety... The problem of locating the complex foundation, beam and brace structures was solved one by one by many solutions requiring creativity and ingenuity, to turn the seemingly impossible into possible.

But the foundation and bracing structure of the project was not the most difficult problem. Locating the statue's shell and installing the stone was a challenge that, when recounted now, the participants still could not imagine that they had overcome such a challenge.

Impressive numbers of Maitreya Bodhisattva Statue

Height: 36m

Weight: 5,112 tons

Statue surface area: 4,651m ²

Location: at an altitude of over 900m

Completion time: 270 days

( To be continued )

Source link: https://thanhnien.vn/nhung-bi-mat-dang-sau-tuong-bo-tat-di-lac-nui-ba-den-185240312093154445.htm