Tieshan Park

Tieshan Park

Tieshan Park is a national AAA-level tourist attraction.

Tieshan Park is the largest park in Jining City. Established in 1981 and officially opened to the public in 1985, it covers an area of over 580 acres. The park has successively developed various scenic areas including an amusement park, a zoo, a peach blossom garden, a rose garden, a peony garden, a cherry garden, and a plum blossom garden, gradually forming a unique style where scenes are nested within scenes and gardens within gardens. In recent years, the park has become a popular destination for local residents to relax, entertain, and exercise.

The Tieshan Cliff Carvings are located within Tieshan Park, about two li northwest of Zoucheng. Commonly referred to as Nangang, the site rises eighty meters high, with the carved stone surface measuring sixty-six point one meters in height and sixteen point four meters in width, covering a total area of one thousand eighty-five square meters. The sunny side features inscriptions of the "Mahāsaṃnipāta Sūtra · Vajracchedikā Chapter" and the "Stone Eulogy," dating back to the first year of the Daying era (579 AD). Written in clerical and regular script styles, the carvings consist of seventeen lines with six to sixty-one characters per line, totaling nine hundred thirty characters, of which seven hundred seventy-seven are still legible. The character size ranges from forty to sixty centimeters in diameter.

The "Stone Eulogy" is located on the right side, bearing the inscription of the sponsor "Kuang Zhe." The two characters "Stone Eulogy" are written in seal script, each measuring ninety-five by seventy-five centimeters. The eulogy text spans twelve lines with forty-three to fifty-two characters per line, each character approximately twenty-two centimeters in diameter. The original carving included six hundred fourteen characters, of which four hundred ninety-two remain today. The lower part contains the inscribers’ names, originally comprising sixty-five characters, of which forty-five are still preserved. These include: “Zhou, Gongcao of Rencheng Commandery; Dàdū Weinà of Pingyang County; Li Ju'ao of Zhao Commandery; Sun Qia, Jingzhu of Rencheng Commandery and Dàdū Duwei; An Daoyi, monk of Dongling, who oversaw the scripture engraving (see Figure 2); Zhou, Pingyue General of Qi’s Search for Virtuous Men; Lü Changgao, Dàdū Weinà and Zhubu of Rencheng Commandery.” Aside from the official participants, the person who inscribed the scripture was An Daoyi. In 1988, the Tieshan Cliff Carvings were designated as a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.