Tiantai Mountain Guoqing Scenic Area

Tiantai Mountain Guoqing Scenic Area

The Tiantai Mountain Guoqing Scenic Area is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

Guoqing Temple was first built in the 18th year of the Kaihuang era of the Sui Dynasty (598), originally named Tiantai Temple, and later renamed Guoqing Temple, implying the wish that “if the temple is completed, the nation will be at peace.” It was listed as one of the Ten Great Temples of Jiangnan during the Southern Song Dynasty, and is now a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

Guoqing Temple is an ancient temple with extremely rich cultural heritage. During the Chen and Sui periods, Master Zhiyi (538–597) founded the Tiantai School—the first sect in the history of Chinese Buddhism—on Tiantai Mountain. During the Tang Dynasty’s Zhenyuan era, the eminent Japanese monk Saichō came to Guoqing Temple to study Buddhism. After returning to Japan, he established the Japanese Tendai School at Enryaku-ji Temple on Mount Hiei. In the 11th century, the Korean monk Uicheon traveled to Guoqing Temple to seek Buddhist teachings, and subsequently introduced the Tiantai School to Korea. As a result, Guoqing Temple became the ancestral temple of the Tiantai School for both Japan and Korea. With the deepening of international cultural exchanges, thousands of monks from Japan and Korea visit Guoqing Temple each year to pay homage to their spiritual roots, making the temple a window for China’s cultural exchange with the world.

Guoqing Temple boasts a rich collection of cultural relics and historical artifacts. It preserves numerous treasures, including gold and silverware, bronze castings, and silk textiles bestowed by emperors throughout the dynasties; stone inscriptions, handwritten sutras, calligraphy, and paintings; wood carvings, jade ornaments, and Buddha statues; as well as precious gifts exchanged through cultural interactions with other countries. Among them, the pattra-leaf scripture, a relic of Master Zhiyi, has been identified by Chen Yinke as the Sanskrit manuscript of the ancient Indian play *Shakuntala*. Other highlights include seven stone engravings of bodhisattva line drawings taken from the Sui Dynasty pagoda, the majestic “Solitary Brush Goose Character” stele of Wang Xizhi found within the temple, the Tang Dynasty Liu Gongquan inscription “Great China Qing’s Temple” behind the temple, the Song Dynasty Huang Tingjian’s poem on Hanshanzi, Mi Fu’s cliff engraving “Xiuyan” (Elegant Rock), and Zhu Xi’s “Zhen Shi” (Pillow Stone)—all shining with the brilliance of history and the splendor of culture in this thousand-year-old temple.