Singapore Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

Entrance to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

Entrance to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

One of the newer sights in Singapore is the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple in Chinatown. It is along the end of South Bridge Road in Singapore’s Chinatown. It is a big red temple which houses what is regarded as a sacred tooth relic of Buddha.

Offerings to Buddha

Offerings to Buddha

Upon entry to the temple, I was amazed at the Buddha carvings all over the place, particularly the big golden one in the center. One needs to remember when going here as it is still a place of worship, so visitors need to dress conservatively so as not to offend the worshippers.

Buddha Statues

Buddha Statues

Right at the courtyard entrance, is an incense pot where worshippers would pray and put their joss sticks. Beyond it is the main worshipping hall. With the large golden Buddha in the middle. Visitors cannot go to the central worshipping area for obvious reasons. But they can get a pretty good view from the sides.

Main Worship Hall

Main Worship Hall

Speaking of the sides, there a lot interesting things to see aside from the main hall. Along the walls are numerous statues of Buddha with names on them, presumably the donors’. Behind the main hall are again innumerable Buddha statues of various sizes. It is amazing to note that, Singapore, cosmopolitan as it is, can still retain traditions such as this.

Golden Buddha

Golden Buddha

Surprisingly, the temple also houses an elevator. And goes all the way up to the 5th floor. As it was already late in the day, we decided to go all the way to the top. The top floor houses the Court of Ten Thousand Buddhas. I was admiring an impressive prayer wheel in the middle of the court when I noticed that there were little Buddha statues on the walls. They were really a lot.

Numerous Buddha Statues

Numerous Buddha Statues

Just outside, I noticed that the temple has windows that seemed out of place. They resembled traditional south east asian wooden windows. To my surprise, upon closer inspection they were actually housing small Buddha statues themselves! Now I realized why they called it the Court of Ten Thousand Buddha’s. I’m not sure how many Buddhas there were, but ten thousand seemed like a good number.

Nice Windows

Nice Windows

While we were up there, we were hoping to get a good view of the Singapore skyline. Unfortunately, this was a place of worship, not a sight seeing tower, so there was no viewing deck whatsoever.

As it was already quite late in the afternoon, we didn’t get a chance to see the reason why the temple was built in the first place — The Buddha Tooth Relic. Apparently it opens at certain times during the day and we weren’t lucky enough to see it. Maybe next time.

We walked down the stairs to find out that the temple was already closed and the main gates were already locked. We asked some staff how to get out but they didn’t speak English, eventually they found out what we needed and pointed us the way out.

Nope, each one has their own little Buddha Statue

Nope, each one has their own little Buddha Statue

Overall, it was a surprisingly interesting tour. It is not as rowdy as the other temples I’ve visited, but nonetheless, it was still interesting to find more about other people’s faith.

The temple is at 288 South Bridge Road, Singapore and is open 7:00am to 7:00pm everyday. Admission is free.

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