The Great Buddha Statue, which sits in meditation (dhyāna) posture, was built by the Daijokyo sect of Nagoya, Japan. The Buddha statue itself is 64ft tall, and is modelled from blocks of pink chunar stone; the lotus (6ft) he sits on from yellow chunar stone and the pedestal (10ft) from red chunar stone. The work was done by Shri Ganpathy Sathpathy from the Mahabalipuram atelier (south of Chennai), and Shri Rishikesh Dasgupta from Kolkata, and took four years to complete. H.H. the XIV Dalai Lama conducted the inauguration ceremony. Around the main statue are a further ten statues of the Buddha's disciples.