Leping Guanyin Pavilion

Leping Guanyin Pavilion

Leping Guanyin Pavilion is a cultural tourism attraction.

Guanyin Pavilion is located on the east side of the former cotton mill near Xiaonanmen in the city center. Originally, there was an ancient temple built before the Song Dynasty, with a stone plaque inscribed “Fragrant Forest Ancient Temple” embedded above its gate. The temple underwent multiple cycles of prosperity and decline, as well as name changes—it was originally called “Fragrant Forest Temple,” later renamed “Fragrant Forest Nunnery.” A stone couplet on the temple gate reads: “The incense curls waft over the Buddhist temple, lush forest flowers guard the meditation gate,” which serves as a poetic reference to the temple’s name. In the fifth year of the Yongzheng reign during the Qing Dynasty (1722), County Magistrate Shen Jiazhen oversaw the temple’s renovation and renamed it Guanyin Pavilion. After the liberation, especially during the era of the campaign against the “Four Olds,” the monks and nuns were driven away, the temple buildings collapsed, and religious activities ceased. In recent years, through the efforts of local religious figures and devotees who raised funds on their own totaling tens of thousands of yuan, the temple was restored. Once-faded Guanyin Pavilion has once again become a place filled with incense smoke and the sound of Buddhist bells, echoing the former grandeur of “the bell chimes of the ancient temple.”