Qifo Temple was first constructed during the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127), making it one of the younger temples in the Mount Wutai complex by local standards. It was rebuilt in 1466 during the Chenghua period of the Ming dynasty, and again in 1734 during the Yongzheng period of the Qing dynasty. That 1734 renovation also marked a theological shift: the temple converted from Chinese to Tibetan Buddhism, joining a wave of conversions that the Qing emperors encouraged across Mount Wutai to cement political alliances with Mongolia and Tibet. But the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) cared nothing for either tradition. Qifo Temple was completely destroyed, reduced to rubble and memory.

In 1991, two monks named Zhengti and Bentong began the work of rebuilding Qifo Temple from nothing. Over the following years, they oversaw the construction of a Mahavira Hall, a Hall of Four Heavenly Kings, the Qifo Hall itself, a Three Saints Hall, a Hall of the Guru, a Hall of Manjushri, and a Buddhist Texts Hall. The seven jade Buddha statues were brought from Myanmar, connecting this remote Shanxi temple to Southeast Asian Buddhist networks. The Three Saints Hall followed the traditional Huayan arrangement: Sakyamuni at the center, Manjushri to the left, Samantabhadra to the right -- the same configuration found in dozens of Mount Wutai's temples, a visual shorthand for the unity of wisdom, compassion, and practice.

The Qifo Tower stands 22 meters high, built entirely of white marble, making it the tallest white marble structure on Mount Wutai. Hexagonal in plan with seven stories, the tower is composed of a pagoda base, a sumeru throne, and a dense-eaved body carved with lotuses, flowers, and grasses. But the carvings that matter most are the Buddha statues in the niches on each story. Reading from top to bottom, they depict the seven Buddhas of the past: Vipashyin, Shikhin, Vishvabhu, Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni, Kashyapa, and Shakyamuni. Each figure represents a different cosmic age, and their vertical arrangement -- ascending from the historical Buddha at the bottom to the most ancient at the top -- creates a timeline carved in stone, inviting the viewer to contemplate the vast expanse of Buddhist cosmological time.