It was something new to me when I heard that there’s a temple with a lot of things to see including statues and great lighting during the night. I was clueless about this temple until the FGS Dong Zen Temple in Jenjarom showed up on Google search and it matches quite a lot of descriptions by others. This temple is regarded as one of the famous temples and also a landmark as well as a tourist attraction. FGS is a short form of ‘Fo Guang Shan’ and I really don’t know what it means as I’m a banana. Translations please anyone?

Located at Jenjarom, Kuala Langat, this temple wasn’t exactly easy to locate especially for those who don’t really have good sense of direction. The road I took was via the Kesas Highway and then followed by some really narrow road. If you’re planning to visit this temple, I would suggest you to do some research on the directions first.

Once you’re on the right direction, you should see some directions to the temple on some street lamps. The temple is really big as it is built on a really large land and from what I see, parking lots will be sufficient as well as they have their own private car park for the visitors.

The walkway right at the entrance is really nice in a sense that it feels really grand to be walking through the walkway and there’s a ‘Kuan Yin’ statue looking facing the entrance. At the side of the walkway is where you’ll find even more statues.

I don’t have good knowledge in this but I suppose the statues at the side of the walkway are some of the higher level monks. The above photo is called Ajita, The Arhat Riding a Deer. A brief description was that Ajita once rode a deer to the palace and advised the king to learn the teaching of the Buddha and to practice and cultivate virtues.

Here’s another statue and this one is called Panthaka, The Arhat With Stretched Arms. He was named this way simply because of his usual lifting of both arms and stretching himself after meditation.

There’s also a tree that the visitors hanged their wishes on so this should be the ‘Wishing Tree’ in the this temple. I think it’ll look great when its really full of wishes, it’ll look very similar to a montage that way.

Above photo is the ‘Kuan Yin’ statue that is directly facing the main entrance of the temple. I’m not too sure what the statue is made of but when there’s a strong sunlight shining down, the statue can get very reflective. Could it be something like silk? There was even a dragonfly that flew past as I captured this image.

There’s also cute little monks right next to the ‘Kuan Yin’ statue. Somehow I think that this temple often uses creativity to attract more visitors.

There’s also a really nice Buddha carvings outside of the multipurpose hall. In my opinion, they should have allowed the visitors to get slightly closer to it as most of the visitors can only see it from quite a distance due to a small pond in between.

The Chinese New Year mood was still there even when it was over. The plants here are really well maintained and I would say that 99% of the plants here really look healthy.

Maybe nature photographers could consider this temple too for their plants!

The prayers hall is big and it looks nice due to the simplicity of it. The prayers hall is even air-conditioned and I don’t think there are many other temples that would install air-conditioners in their prayers hall. Perhaps this temple thought of the comfort of their visitors too?

Be it for prayers or even just visiting the temple as a leisure, FGS Dong Zen Temple never really fails to attract other visitors. For example, you won’t see the cute little monks in many other temples. Well, this temple seems to come in through the fun and excitement angle apart from being just a ritual place. There’s even a mini vegetarian restaurant and a food court should you need to have a meal here.

In short, the temple is worth visiting if you have not been here before. I would like to visit this place again but during the night because apparently during the night, the temple is really lighted up nicely and it would be a great opportunity to witness and photograph it.

FGS Dong Zen Temple
PT 2297, Jalan Sg Buaya
Jenjarom, Kuala Langat
Selangor Darul Ehsan