Nirvana Day is an annual Buddhist festival that remembers the death of the Buddha when he reached Nirvana at the age of 80. Nirvana is believed to be the end of the cycle of death and rebirth.

In 1330-1331 during the Yuan Dynasty, a large-scale bronze image of the Buddha attaining Nirvana was cast, and from that time on, the temple was popularly called the Temple of the Reclining Buddha.

Decades later, on December 29, 1993, the Post reported that “the construction of the giant Buddha on Lantau caused enough trouble to guarantee anyone involved a ticket to Nirvana”.

Unlike the Gautama Buddha, who had achieved nirvana, an ultimate state of nothingness, and was unable to intercede on the behalf of those in need, the Mahayana conceptualised a powerful ...