Siong Lin Temple
Siong Lin Temple in Toa Payoh is one of the best-known temples outside the city area. Its address is 184 E Jalan Toa Payoh but the directions are almost superfluous once one is on the road as the temple is too big to be missed.
The full name of the temple is Lin Shan Siong Lin Shan Si, which translates to the Twin Groves of the Lotus Mountain Buddhist Temple. The temple commemorates the birth of Buddha in a grove of trees and his death under the bodhi tree, the same kind off tree under which he achieved enlightenment. A Buddhist philanthropist Low Kim Pong founded the Siong Lin Temple around the turn of the century. He had donated 4 hectares of land on Balestier Plain and asked a visiting abbot to build a temple there with $500,000 he helped to raise. The central building containing the main altar was finished in 1904 while the hall of the Four heavenly kings was finished the following year. Officially, the temple was completed in 1908 but the building never seems to stop.
Different manifestations of the Lord Buddha, the Goddess of Mercy Kuan Yin, Si Da Tian Wang (or the Four Heavenly Kings) and 18 lohans preside over the smaller shrines in the temple dedicated to ancestral figures, including the founder Low Kim Pong. The temple was given facelifts in 19119, 1935, 1950 and 1997 but neither these nor large-scales repairs and the addition of new buildings have diminished its appeal. The arrival of the Pan-Island Expressway cut through woodland that used to screen Siong Lin Temple. And the road now puts the temple on permanent show to anyone driving through. The grounds were halved in the 1950s when the land was acquired for public housing. Despite that, Siong Lin Temple remains one of the largest temple in Singapore and its carved panels, worked ceilings and statues are among its most photographed objects.