DOWN in the "valley" among the high-rises at the intersection of Nanjing Xilu and Huashan Lu is the 1,000-year-old Jing'an Temple.

It is undergoing another renovation, with the project scheduled for completion by the end of 2006.

Several episodes of pillaging and vandalism during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) mean that the claimed total of 1,700 years of history in Shanghai are now only "name deep." That is why the current renovation is a big one, with every building being torn down and rebuilt in the style of the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

"Actually, the buildings in the temple were not original at all," said Zhu Erxin, an official with the Religious Affairs Office of the Jing'an District.

The "original" temple buildings have already been repaired since 1949. In 1972, a serious fire destroyed the temple and during the "cultural revolution", the Buddhist sculptures were almost entirely destroyed.

Ups and downs

Yet the beginning of the temple can indeed be dated back 1,700 years, to the Warring States period (475-221 BC), when it was called the Hudu Chongyuan Temple.

It was renamed the Yongtai Chansi in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and from the Song Dynasty (960-1279) it began to be called the Jing'an Temple.

The temple was first located near Wusong River, presently suburban Shanghai.

In 1216 it was moved to its present location, among villages at that time, because the buildings had been lashed by water and started to incline.

The temple consisted of three main halls - the Tianwang Hall, the Da'nan Baodian and the Sansheng Hall.

After the First Opium War (1839-42) the foreign concessions gradually expanded in Shanghai and the city started to absorb the previously rural surrounding areas, including the site of the Jing'an Temple.

Before the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, monks who led monastic lives in the temple had to sell some of the land to support themselves, according to Zhu. The area of the temple shrank greatly, from over 6.66 hectares to the less than half a hectare occupied today.

"The decrease of the temple land area was also partly caused by the development of the city and construction of roads, but the temple has also seen an increase in visitors and believers in recently years," said Zhu.

Controversial renovation

The area beneath one of the temple buildings was chosen as an exit for Metro Line 2.

"The buildings in the temple lost their symmetry, which was not in keeping with what a temple or any other traditional Chinese building should be," he said.

Meanwhile, the buildings made of bricks and wood became dilapidated. Thus the need for the present renovation, which will be accompanied by an increase in the temple area to 0.8 hectares.

All the small Buddha sculptures have been moved to other temples and only a jade sculpture of the sitting Sakyamuni, the largest in China, has been kept at the site. The 11-ton sculpture was a gift from a Singapore Buddhist adherent in 1989.

So far, the temple has remained open to visitors and passers-by can see the outer part of the temple has almost taken shape. It has grown much higher than the original, which makes the temple stand out better among the neighbouring high-rises. The concrete-piled buildings have grand gates with golden characters above and marble railings.

Yet the new renovation plan was not appreciated by some experts.

"It has lost its original flavour as an elegant and simple Southern Chinese temple," said Zheng Shiling, professor of the Architecture Department of Tongji University. "It has been rebuilt to be splendid and grand, more like a building from North China."

Zheng said the temple itself has become wealthy in the past years and it now hoped to look luxurious. "It's a move that doesn't respect history."

He also said it was a pity the temple had been driven to sell its extensive land holdings of earlier years.

The city has another two renowned temples, the Jade Buddha Temple and the Longhua Temple, both tightly surrounded by modern buildings just as the Jing'an Temple is.

The Jade Buddha Temple was built in 1918 but the Longhua Temple was started in 247, giving it a longer history than the Jing'an Temple.