This pavilion, where Qing emperors and empresses used to pray and chant scriptures, was built in the 20th year of Emperor Qianlong’s reign (1755). It is 7.55 meters high and weighs 207 tons. All its component parts, the beams, pillars, supporting brackets, rafters, tiles, couplings, etc., were cast in bronze by traditional technical methods called “melting the wax” and “breaking the mould”, and the exterior was furnished in a greenish-gray color. The bronze pavilion is of great scientific value.

The pavilion is one of the few remaining buildings in the Garden of Clear Ripples that escaped the fire set by the Anglo-French Allied Forces when they ransacked the Garden in 1860. Unfortunately, all of the furnishings were lost. In 1900, the garden was again looted by the Allied Forces of the Eight-Powers, and ten of the pavilion’s windows found their way overseas. In 1993 the American International Insurance Group Inc. purchased the windows and sent them back to the Summer Palace as a gift to China.