Sun World Ba Den Mountain Iconic landmark How elaborately was the statue of Bodhisattva Maitreya on Ba Den Mountain, Tay Ninh crafted?

How elaborately was the statue of Bodhisattva Maitreya on Ba Den Mountain, Tay Ninh crafted?

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How elaborately was the statue of Bodhisattva Maitreya on Ba Den Mountain, Tay Ninh crafted?

11/08/2025

Going to Nui Ba Den (Tay Ninh) for pilgrimage and worship to pray for peace and happiness, visitors cannot help but marvel at the masterpiece, one of the world's largest statues of Bodhisattva Maitreya on the mountaintop. Behind it is an extremely elaborate creation process that not everyone can imagine.

Precise to the… centimeter

The Maitreya statue is created in an unprecedented way in Vietnam: assembled from 6,688 natural sandstone blocks in a tiered pattern. To create a work rich in artistry, each sandstone block is carefully selected, checking color, stone grain, and precise dimensions, then carved according to the design and stacked into 54 layers.

The Maitreya Bodhisattva Statue is located at an altitude of over 900m on the summit of Ba Den Mountain.

In Vietnam, this is the first time sandstone has been used to build a Buddha statue. Sandstone is formed from sand grains, including silicon, a part of limestone. When crafting, artisans must grasp which lines need to be cut and which need to be kept. Because the statue is shaped in a terraced style, it is not smooth like other statues, so the lines must fit extremely precisely during processing.

According to a representative of the design unit for the Maitreya Bodhisattva Statue, the material chosen to create the Statue must signify eternity. And green sandstone was selected, despite the very high cost and much greater difficulty in construction compared to simpler materials like concrete Buddha statues in many other localities.

"The creative process was very elaborate, but the construction process was truly the challenge. Our architects and engineers had to learn and apply the world's leading modern building modeling BIM design technology to implement the construction plan. All structural components and stone slabs were 3D modeled, then carefully marked with order, and precisely crafted before being assembled into a complete whole," shared Mr. Pham Thanh Quang, Design Management Department - Sun Group Corporation.

The statue's crafting process is extremely complex under the harsh weather conditions of the high mountain region.

Mr. Bui Nhat Thi, Head of Design Coordination Department - Tay Ninh Project Management Board, who directly oversaw the construction of the Maitreya Bodhisattva Statue, stated that out of 6,688 sandstone blocks, no two are alike, and any block deviating even 1 centimeter will be re-cut and sculpted. He added that the most complex parts of the statue are the hands, feet, nose, chin, mouth, and the necklace, requiring meticulous and elaborate craftsmanship and stone fitting to ensure both technical and artistic aspects, as well as the spiritual essence of the Buddha statue. Particularly, due to construction on a high mountain peak, the weather conditions are very harsh, with frequent strong winds and dense fog, making every step in the construction and crafting process extremely complex.

“We used robots for construction, lifting and installing each part to minimize human effort, but this is truly a project full of challenges in terms of difficulty and rarity of intricacy worldwide” – Mr. Thi said.

“In construction, workers must have very high skills and a keen eye to imbue soul into each product, each stone when holding a hammer or chisel. And when installed, they must fit together perfectly. To create such a large statue, the supervisor must understand the process of making each piece, each block of stone. Every smallest part must be calculated because if it shifts, it will take time and require redoing,” said Mr. Nguyen Van Chung – representative of the stone supplier for the project.

This Buddhist architectural masterpiece is a place that everyone should admire once in their lifetime.

Unimaginable Challenges

The world's tallest Maitreya Bodhisattva statue was built on extremely complex terrain, it is hard to believe it could be completed in a record short time - 9 months, with 120 workers taking turns working from morning until 9 PM.

Mr. Tran Duc Hoa, Head of the Tay Ninh Project Management Board, said: “We have built many record-breaking projects such as the Fansipan cable car in Sa Pa or the tallest Asian statue of Avalokitesvara on Ba Den mountain, but the Maitreya Bodhisattva statue is truly an unimaginable challenge”.

For Mr. Hoa, completing a colossal structure requiring centimeter-level precision, under harsh terrain and weather conditions within 9 months, was initially almost an impossible task. “But by the last month of the Year of the Cat (Quy Mao), we truly turned the dream into reality. All the sweat and even tears have become overwhelming happiness for us as we witnessed thousands of visitors coming to worship the Maitreya statue in the early days of the new spring,” he said.

This Tet, the Di Lac Spring Festival on Ba Den Mountain will offer many sacred experiences right before the world's largest Bodhisattva Maitreya statue.

According to Most Venerable Thich Le Trang, Head of the Executive Council of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha in Ho Chi Minh City: “This can be said to be a masterpiece not only of Vietnam but also of the world, with no work as exquisite as this. This is also an occasion for everyone to come and pay homage to the statue and learn the virtue of magnanimity of Bodhisattva Maitreya.”

At an altitude of over 900m, located on the watershed peak with a steep terrain of Ba Den Mountain, the world's largest Bodhisattva Maitreya statue has truly become a Buddhist architectural masterpiece, one of the wonders everyone should admire at least once in their lifetime.