Avery Island in Louisiana is home to a beautiful statue of a Buddha that is housed in a glass temple that looks over a lovely Asian themed garden.
This is the path that you walk to get to the Buddha.
This Buddha originally lived in the Shonfa Temple northeast of Peking and was commissioned by Emperor Hui-Tsung between 1101 and 1125.
According to tradition, in the 1920s a Chinese warlord sent a roughly 900-year-old statue of Buddha to America, where it sat unclaimed for many years in a New York City warehouse. In 1936, two friends of E. A. ("Ned") McIlhenny purchased the statue and sent it to him by rail as a surprise. Ned responded by designing an Asian-influenced garden setting for the sacred statue. He constructed a long forest pool, an arched stone bridge, and glass-enclosed temple. He built up seven "hills of knowledge" that surround the Buddha and covered them with azaleas, sasanqua, camellias, and bamboos.
The glass is very scratched up so it is hard to get a clear pic of the statue.
Today the Buddha statue serves as a centerpiece of Jungle Gardens and greets thousands of visitors annually.
From tobasco.com:
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