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The biggest gold-gilded copper sitting Buddha--Amitabha the Meitriya
 In the largest city in inner Tibet, Shigatse, there stands a magnificent building famous at home and abroad--the Tashilumpo Monastery. This contains the most famous shrine of Buddhism --the Shrine of Amitabha Meitriya which was built by the ninth Panchen lama, Qujinyima in 1904.standing 30 metres high and taking up an area of nearly 800 square metres, the shrine encompasses 5 storeys altogether: the Hall of the Lotus Throne, the Hall of the Waist, the Hall of the waist, the Hall of the Chest, the Hall of the Face and the Hall of the Crown. Inside is the world's biggest copper image of a gold-gilded sitting Amitabha. Its lotus throne alone has a height of 3.8 metres; the Buddha image is 22.4 M. high, making a total height of 26.2 metres. The facial features are 4.2 M. long. the shoulders are 11.4 M. wide. the nostrils can hold a grown-up inside. the whole statue used more than 230,000 catties of red copper and 8,000 ounces of gold in its plating, with big diamonds about three centimetres in diametre inlaid for the white eyebrows. also inlaid in the Buddha's statue diamonds about 1 centimetre in diametre,300 big pearls and more than 1,400 varied coral, amber and turquoise stones. It took 110 smiths more than 2 years to complete the statue of the Buddha which has become the largest gold-gilded copper Buddha in the world.
The teaching that Amitabha Meitriya will take the place of Buddha sakyamuni as the most respected in Buddhism originated the name"the future Buddha".
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