Guo Pu Mound

Guo Pu Mound

Guo Pu Mound is a cultural relic protection unit of Nanjing.

Guo Pu Mound is located in Huanzhou (Ring Isle) of Xuanwu Lake Park in Xuanwu District, Nanjing. It is a cenotaph for Guo Pu, also known as Guo Xian Dun. In 322 AD, Wang Dun, a powerful general of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, planned a rebellion. Guo Pu candidly predicted “no success,” which enraged Wang Dun, leading to his execution. Emperor Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty admired Guo Pu’s integrity and ordered the construction of a Holy Edict Pavilion on the mound for people to pay their respects. In 1992, it was listed as a municipal-level cultural heritage site in Nanjing.

Guo Pu Mound is the cenotaph of Guo Pu, a renowned literary figure and scientist of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. It is situated in the northwest part of Huanzhou in Xuanwu Lake, between the artificial hill waterfall and Fang Bridge. The mound is a small elevated hill serving as Guo Pu’s symbolic tomb, hence the name. Originally, there was a stele pavilion on the mound called “Guo Pavilion.” A monument commemorating soldiers who died in the Songhu Resistance War once stood on the hill, and at the foot of the mound there is an arched iron gate inscribed with the words “Enduring Noble Spirit.”

Guo Pu (276–324), courtesy name Jingzhen, was a Han Chinese from Wenxi County, Hedong (present-day Wenxi County, Shanxi Province), the son of Guo Yuan, the governor of Jianping in the Western Jin Dynasty. He was a prominent scholar of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, excelling as a litterateur, philologist, Daoist master of divination, pioneer of immortal-poetry, and the founding figure of Chinese geomancy. His work “Zang Jing” (The Book of Burial) laid the foundation for the practice. As war loomed at the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, Guo Pu fled to the south. Later, he served as a clerk under Wang Dun. In 324, when Wang Dun planned a rebellion and asked Guo Pu to divine the outcome, Guo Pu predicted certain failure. For this, he was executed at the age of 49. Emperor Ming of Jin later built a cenotaph for Guo Pu by Xuanwu Lake in Nanjing, named... More details about Guo Pu++