普济寺

This guide to Puji Temple above Lijiang centers on 1937, when a Living Buddha named Shenglu, fourth in an unbroken line of Tibetan Buddhist teachers all born with the surname He, set out to cover the entire main hall in beaten copper tiles hauled up a mountainside with no foundry of its own. It traces the monastery back to a lama named Dengzeng, who founded it in 1771, and to two earlier rebuildings under the Jiaqing and Daoguang emperors. Two cherry trees over two hundred years old still stand in front of the hall every spring, framing the roof Shenglu bet a fortune in metal on.