Fahai Cave

Fahai Cave

Fahai Cave is located beneath the Cishou Pagoda at Jinshan. It was the site where the founding patriarch of Jinshan Temple, the monk Fahai (also known as Paituo), engaged in ascetic practice. A statue of Fahai is enshrined in the cave.

Legend has it that one could cross the river to Yangzhou through this cave. The Song Dynasty scholar Zhang Shangying visited here and left a poem: “A half-room stone chamber, a meditation abode; / Glorious fame and achievements are hard to erase. / The white serpent turned into a dragon and returned to the sea; / In the mountains, an old monk was left behind.”

To this day, the last two lines of this poem have been made into a couplet and hang in front of Fahai Cave.