Liuyun Pavilion

Liuyun Pavilion

Liuyun Pavilion is located at the top of Huai Mountain on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, north of Jinkou Town in Jiangxia District. Legend has it that this was the site where Bodhidharma crossed the river on a single reed, hence it was anciently called Dharma Pavilion.

Bodhidharma (circa ?–528 or 536), also known as Daruma, was an ancient Indian monk. At the end of the Liu Song Dynasty of the Southern Dynasties (some say in the first year of the Liang Dynasty’s Putong or Datong era), he sailed to Guangzhou and later entered the Shaolin Temple on Mount Song, where he “faced the wall in meditation” for nine years (some say ten). He introduced meditation methods known as “entry through principle” (abandoning falsehood to return to truth) and “entry through practice” (letting go of all attachments and aversions), and was revered as the 28th patriarch of the Zen (Chan) sect in India (“Western Heaven”) and the first patriarch of the Zen sect in China (“Eastern Land”). Emperor Daizong of the Tang Dynasty posthumously honored him with the title “Master Yuanjue.”

The year of the pavilion’s construction is unknown, but it was renovated during the Ming Dynasty. It acquired its current name after a poem inscribed on a stone tablet was discovered, which reads: “Once a yellow crane sojourned in Runan, the city moved and never returned. Here remains only the pavilion through seasons, with white clouds lingering over Huai Mountain for a thousand years.” Thus, the pavilion took its name from the poem, and the poem gained fame through the pavilion. It was restored after the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Transportation

Take a bus within Wuhan City and get off at Jinkou Town.