Sansuyan Cliff

Sansuyan Cliff

Sansuyan Cliff is a cultural relic protection unit of Nanjing City.

Sansuyan Cliff is located at No. 116 Chaoyuelou, Gulou District, dating back to the Southern Song Dynasty.

In the backyard of Jinghai Temple, there is a rock formation resembling a rockery, named "Sansuyan Cliff," which is an extension of Lion Mountain. If Lion Mountain is likened to a lion, then this cliff is like the lion's head. A cave within the cliff resembles the lion's open mouth.

Legend has it that in the 31st year of the Shaoxing era of the Southern Song Dynasty (1161), Zhongshu Sheren Yu Yunwen (1110–1174), after achieving victory at the Battle of Caishi with just 18,000 exhausted troops against 400,000 invading Jin soldiers, sailed eastward toward Jingkou (Zhenjiang). On his way through Jiankang (Nanjing), he moored his boat in a cave under Lion Mountain for three days, hence the name "Sansuyan Cliff" ("Three-Night Cliff").

Upon close inspection, the entire rock formation exhibits the classic qualities of "thinness, wrinkling, perforation, and translucence," with jagged, rugged, and majestic features, earning it the reputation of being a "real-and-fake mountain." Originally situated by the riverbank, the rock was shaped by the relentless force of river waves. After more than nine hundred years of changing landscapes, sediment accumulation, and shifting shorelines, it now stands over a bus stop’s distance away from the Yangtze River.

During the Ming Dynasty, Jinghai Temple and Tianfei Palace were built in front of the cliff. By the Qing Dynasty, it was designated as one of the Forty-Eight Scenic Spots of Jinling, known as "Famed Cliff of Three Nights."

Sansuyan Cliff is a cultural relic protection unit of Nanjing City.