Located at Anyuan Road it was built in the reign of Emperor 
Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty and has now seen a history of over 1000 years. The name of the temple is derived from the two jade Buddhas in the temple, one in sitting statue and another reclining, which were taken back from Myanmar.
During the period of Emperor Guangxu's reign a monk named Huigen went from Puto Mountain to worship the Buddha in India and on his way back he, traversing through Myanmar, brought five statues, big and small, of jade Buddha back to China. In 1882, the eighth year in the reign of Guangxu he left two of the Sakyamuni statues in Shanghai when passing by and with his a temple was first built at Jiangwan, naming it the Jade Buddha Temple.
The temple is an imitation of the palatial buildings of the Song Dynasty. The first row is the Hall of Heavenly Kings, the second the Mahavira Hall and the third the abbot hall, above which is the hall for the Jade Buddha. Sitting in the shrine at the center is that Jade Buddha and on both sides of the hall are kept the Tripitaka Sutra in full text, which, published in the reign of Emperor Qianlong, consists of 7,000 volumes in total. The rest halls in the temple include the Meditation Hall, Vegetarian Canteen, Recumbent-Buddha Hall, Hall of Charity and Virtue, Bronze Buddha Hall and Hall of Goddess of Mercy and some other halls and abodes for visitors.
The Jade Buddhas are the treasure of the temple. One, sitting 1.9 meters high, is carved out of a whole piece of white jade, which, pure and shiny with a solemn look, can be taken as a treasure piece in the art of Buddhism. Another is a Reclining Buddha of 0.95 meter in length, a Sakyamuni figure in the state of nirvana. Hung on the walls of the Reclining Buddha Hall are the four pictures describing imaginatively the life of the Buddha. Therefore, the Jade Buddha Temple is a temple with magnificent building and matchless Jade Buddhas, a renowned Buddhist temple in Shanghai.
