Dapeng Mountain Buddha's Footprint Cave

Dapeng Mountain Buddha's Footprint Cave

At the cliffs atop Dapeng Mountain lies an extraordinary cave. At its entrance, two towering rocks stand opposite each other, requiring visitors to stoop as they enter, only to find the interior suddenly open and spacious. Looking up, steep cliffs tower over ten feet high, with the sky visible above and ancient trees providing shade. Looking down, one can spot a natural footprint on the cave wall, with distinct toes — legend says this is the Buddha’s footprint, and the cave is named after it.

There are two different legends about the origin of this Buddha’s footprint. One says it was left by Xu Fu. It is said that when Emperor Qin Shi Huang sent Xu Fu eastward to the three sacred mountains in search of the elixir of immortality, Xu Fu climbed the mountain and found this cave shaded by dense foliage, with its entrance facing the vast East China Sea. He made it his dwelling place. Months later, when ordered to set sail, he told Emperor Qin Shi Huang before leaving, “I have left a footprint in this cave. When this footprint flattens, I, Xu Fu, will return.” After saying this, he turned back into the cave, kicked off with one leg, and flew onto his boat. When the emperor entered the cave and saw a deep footprint, he ordered guards to watch over it, hoping the footprint would flatten. More than two thousand years have passed, the footprint remains clearly visible, but Xu Fu never returned. The other legend says it was left by Guanyin (the Goddess of Mercy). Originally, Guanyin’s sacred site was in India, but Chinese Buddhists invited her to Dapeng Mountain. However, upon arriving in the cave, she discovered it had been Xu Fu’s cultivation site and did not want to take over his space. She circled the area on a cloud and found Putuo Mountain to be a better place. With a single kick using her left foot, she leapt to Putuo Mountain. As she used her left foot, only a left footprint was left on Dapeng Mountain, while her right footprint is on Putuo Mountain. Regardless, both are called the “Guanyin Leap.”

Legend has it that in the first year of the Tianbao era of the Tang Dynasty (742 AD), the monk Dahui arrived here and discovered the large footprint in the cave, which he believed to be the Buddha’s. He then went around soliciting donations to build the Buddha’s Footprint Temple. In the early Song Dynasty, the abbot of the temple asked someone to carve a stone statue of the Long-Eyed Arhat in the cave, unfortunately destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Today, three well-preserved stone inscriptions remain on the cave walls, two from the Southern Song Dynasty and one from the Kangxi era of the Qing Dynasty, showing how widely renowned the Buddha’s Footprint Cave once was.