Light shines on the Qixia Mountain Buddha

Yangtse Evening Post
November 24, 2009

For twenty-seven minutes yesterday, the afternoon sun tracked a path across the head of a Buddha statue in a temple on Qixia Mountain.

The Yangtse Evening Post, acting on a tip from a local Nanjinger, arrived at the Hall of the Three Sages, where over one hundred onlookers had assembled by 3 pm.

At 3:17, a ray of light hit the statue in the right eye and gradually moved upward to the middle of the forehead before disappearing. Amazing!

Despite the promise of supernatural speculation extended by the front-page photo and headline ("Marvelous, mysterious light!"), the full-page report goes on to reveal that the light strikes the face of the Buddha statue every year; last year it was observed from November 24 to 27.

The paper was unable to determine whether the phenomenon was intentional.

The statues inside the hall were installed during the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420–589), but the outer wall was only constructed later. It was renovated into its present form during the reign of the Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

Architecture experts told the paper that although the light could possibly be intentional, it may very well be merely a coincidence.