Niushou Mountain Cultural Tourism Zone, Nanjing 南京牛首山文化旅游区

Welcome, everyone, to Niushoushan Cultural Tourism Area in Nanjing. Today we'll move from Foding Front Garden → Foding Temple → Foding Palace → Foding Pagoda → Niutou Chan Cultural Park → Zheng He Cultural Park → Yue Fei's Anti-Jin Ramparts, walking from the foot of the mountain to the summit and experiencing a thousand years of history that have made Niushoushan "half the story of Buddhism in Nanjing."

Let's start with the big picture. Take a look at the mountain from here — do you see those two rounded humps on the ridge? Don't they look like a pair of ox horns? That's exactly where the name Niushoushan comes from: "niushou" means "ox head." But the mountain also goes by another name — Tianque, meaning "Heavenly Gateway" — and there's a wonderful story behind it. When the Eastern Jin dynasty was newly established, the emperor wanted to build a pair of ceremonial gate towers — the kind of tall stone pillars that stood in front of a palace — outside the imperial compound. His prime minister, Wang Dao, pointed to the twin peaks of Niushoushan and said: "The country is just getting started and funds are short. Those two peaks are natural gate towers, a gift from Heaven itself — why spend money building new ones?" The emperor was persuaded, and from that day on the mountain carried the grand secondary name Tianque — "Heaven's Gate."

The mountain's place in Buddhist history is extraordinary. During the Tang dynasty, a monk named Farong came to Niushoushan and founded the Niutou school of Chan Buddhism — one of the earliest Chan schools in China, predating even Huineng's Southern Chan school. At its height, Niushoushan was ranked alongside Mount Wutai in Shanxi and Mount Emei in Sichuan as one of China's three great Buddhist sacred sites. Then in October 2015, the skull relic of Shakyamuni Buddha — a fragment of bone from the crown of the Buddha's own head — was permanently enshrined here. This relic is the only surviving object of its kind anywhere in the world. Its arrival transformed Niushoushan from a celebrated historical mountain into a living Buddhist pilgrimage site.

We're now walking through Foding Front Garden, which opened in 2018 and covers a full 100,000 square meters. Look to your right at the long culture wall — the bas-relief carvings tell Niushoushan's story in chronological order, from the Eastern Jin dynasty's Tianque legend to Farong's founding of the Niutou Chan school in the Tang dynasty, all the way to the enshrining of the skull relic in 2015. Think of this wall as the mountain's resume — once you've read it, every building you'll see today will make sense. The lake ahead is called Tingxin Lake. "Tingxin" means "stilling the mind" — this is a place to pause, set down whatever is weighing on you from city life, and carry a quieter spirit up the mountain. The path along the shore is Tianque Road. Let's keep moving. Our first stop: Foding Temple.

The solemn gate you see now is the entrance to Foding Temple — the monastic home of the community that guards and venerates the Buddha's skull relic. The temple covers 23,000 square meters and was completed in 2015 alongside Foding Palace.

Take a moment to feel the character of this place. It's quite different from the bright saffron-yellow temples you typically see around Nanjing, isn't it? Every building here follows the Tang-dynasty style: gentle gray roof slopes, deep overhanging eaves, columns and beams left in the natural color of the timber with no painted decoration. Why Tang? Because Farong's Niutou school of Chan flourished during the Tang dynasty, so using Tang-style architecture to echo that era makes perfect sense. Tang buildings also carry an aesthetic all their own — a dignity that doesn't come from gold and color, but from the proportions and bearing of the wood structure itself. That spirit is exactly what you see here.

Let's walk in along the central axis. The layout follows the traditional seven-hall monastic plan, precisely symmetrical on either side of a single centerline. The first hall is the Heavenly Kings Hall, enshrining Maitreya Buddha and the Four Heavenly Kings. Look carefully at the Heavenly Kings — Tang-style guardian figures are strikingly different from those of the Ming and Qing periods: their hair is tied up rather than helmeted, their expressions are fiercer, their postures more dynamic. If you're interested in Buddhist sculptural art, these are a rare example of the Tang aesthetic.

The second hall — the Mahavira Hall — is the spiritual heart of the temple. Step inside and you'll see the Three Buddhas of the Three Ages at the center: Shakyamuni Buddha of the present world, the Medicine Buddha of the Eastern Pure Lapis Lazuli World, and Amitabha Buddha of the Western Pure Land. All three statues are carved from golden nanmu wood. If you happen to visit during the midday service — when the monks chant sutras together — stay a moment outside the hall and listen. The timber-frame structure of a Tang-style hall resonates beautifully; the chanting wraps around the columns and beams and lingers in the air. That sound is this building at its most alive.

The side halls to the east and west include the Sangharama Hall and the Patriarch Hall. The Patriarch Hall is well worth a look. Inside is a statue of the Chan master Farong, who came to Niushoushan and sat in meditation day and night in a cave on the mountain, eventually founding the Niutou school of Chan. He is both the founder of this tradition and the starting point of a Buddhist heritage that has shaped this mountain for over a thousand years. After the temple, we continue up the mountain to today's main event — Foding Palace.

Ahead of us is the soul of Niushoushan — Foding Palace. Don't go inside just yet. Let's stand out here for a moment, because this building's exterior holds more information than it first appears.

Think back over the walk from the entrance. You've been climbing steadily uphill the whole way — but you may not have noticed that the ground beneath this spot simply didn't exist a hundred years ago. From 1937 to 1958, iron ore was mined here, and the western peak of Niushoushan was essentially hollowed out: a crater more than 60 meters deep and over 200 meters across. In 2012, a bold decision was made: don't fill the pit — build a palace inside it. What you see now is the result. The three stories of Foding Palace above ground are just the tip of the iceberg; six more levels go straight down, reaching 44 meters underground at the deepest point. From devastation to rebirth, from mine crater to sacred hall — Foding Palace is the ultimate example of turning ruin into wonder.

Now look at the building's exterior in three parts. The vast curved structure draped over the entire building is the large dome — 120 meters across. What does its shape remind you of? It's designed to look like the Buddha's robe, a kasaya flowing down over everything below, symbolizing the boundless protection of the Buddha extending over all beings.

Beneath the large dome, that golden sphere is the small dome, representing the ushnisha — the protrusion on top of the Buddha's head that symbolizes supreme wisdom. Viewed on its own, the small dome also resembles a pair of hands pressed together at the chest — the palms-together gesture of Buddhist reverence. So the small dome carries two meanings at once: the Buddha's wisdom (the ushnisha) and the devotee's offering (the gesture of veneration).

The circular base beneath the small dome is the Lotus Throne. Count them: 56 Flying Apsaras Bodhi Gates and 56 Cloud-Gate Ruyi Columns. The number 56 is deliberate — it represents China's 56 ethnic groups. "Flying Apsaras" are the celestial figures from the Dunhuang murals; "Bodhi" means wisdom. The image is "a lotus cradling a jewel" — the lotus as the base, the small dome as the jewel — and this is the central visual theme of the entire building.

If you want a photo here, the best spot is due south of the circular plaza in front of the Lotus Throne. Step well back so you can fit the sweep of the large dome's robe arc, the golden small dome, and the three gates of the Lotus Throne all into a single frame. On a clear day between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., the light is strongest and the gilded surface of the small dome reflects beautifully. Now let's head inside. First stop: the Chan Panorama.

You've just stepped into the Chan Panorama. Let the space settle over you first — 112 meters long, 62 meters wide, rising more than 46 meters at its peak, with a total area of over 6,000 square meters. The room is a vast ellipse. The floor is polished pale stone, still as a lake. The ceiling curves in a continuous arc, with not a single supporting column in sight — an extraordinary structural achievement.

Look to the center of the room. A 7.5-meter reclining figure of Shakyamuni Buddha, carved in white marble, rests serenely on an enormous lotus platform. His eyes are gently closed, and a barely perceptible smile rests on his lips. This is not a representation of death. It is nirvana — in Buddhism, not an ending but a state beyond birth and death, beyond coming and going, the most complete and perfect form of existence. So this figure is not falling; he is resting in absolute stillness. Notice how his hands lie naturally at his sides, his whole body utterly at ease, without any trace of tension or struggle.

Walk around the reclining Buddha and take in the three areas surrounding him. Each uses a different landscape approach to represent a key moment in the Buddha's life. On the left is the Garden of the Birth — centered on a great Asoka tree. Buddhist texts tell us that the Buddha's mother, Queen Maya, gave birth to him under an Asoka tree in Lumbini Garden. On the right is the Garden of Enlightenment — a bodhi tree representing the night the Buddha sat beneath one and attained awakening. Between them, where the reclining figure rests, is the Lotus Theater.

If you're here during a performance, stay and watch. When the show begins, the great lotus petals rise up from the floor, the reclining Buddha slowly descends, and light, music, and mist fill the space — it's genuinely breathtaking. But even without a performance, the quietness of this room is enough to draw you inward. Find a seat, sit down, and look at the reclining Buddha for three minutes with nothing in your mind. That isn't daydreaming — it's Chan: pure, undivided awareness, without judgment, without chasing thoughts. That is Chan at its most essential.

Now we descend. Our next stop is the Relic Hall — deep underground.

We take the elevator down to the fifth basement level, entering the Relic Hall — also called the Hall of a Thousand Buddhas.

As the elevator doors open, pause for a moment before you step out. Notice the shift in temperature and light. The hall maintains a constant temperature of around 20 degrees Celsius year-round. The lighting is a warm dark gold and deep red. The entire space is domed and elliptical, and you'll feel yourself completely enveloped in a warm, enclosing atmosphere.

Look straight to the center — that is the Sacred Relic Stupa. It stands 21.8 meters tall, cast in bronze and gilded throughout. The design draws on the gilded jeweled Ashoka stupa from the Great Bao'en Temple, and takes its form from the inverted Sumeru-mountain column found at the center of cave shrines in Dunhuang's Mogao Grottoes — Mount Sumeru being the axis of the universe in Buddhist cosmology. "Gilded" here doesn't mean painted gold: gilding is the ancient process of blending gold into a gold-mercury amalgam, applying it to a bronze surface, then heating it to evaporate the mercury, leaving pure gold locked permanently into the metal. Artisans mastered this technique thousands of years ago.

Walk closer and look at the stupa's surface. The ornamentation uses cloisonne enamel, crystal, colored glass, and gemstones — the "Seven Treasures" of Buddhism — along with bronze casting, gilding, cloisonne work, sculpture, and chasing, combining dozens of traditional crafts in a single object. The most remarkable section is the blue vase-shaped dome at the top of the stupa, executed entirely in cloisonne enamel. The largest cloisonne works in China typically reach about one meter in height; this dome stands 2.8 meters — an absolute record for cloisonne work, in China or anywhere else in the world.

Look up at the ceiling. The circular canopy, rising 26 meters overhead, is painted with four radiant visions of the Buddhist paradise. Arranged around the base of the stupa are four jade Buddha statues, each 1.2 meters tall and carved from sections of white jade blocks weighing 25 tons apiece. Jade of this size and purity is extraordinarily rare.

On major Buddhist festivals, the skull relic is brought up from the Relic Crypt on the deepest level to this stupa for the veneration of worshippers. On ordinary days the relic rests 44 meters underground — but this stupa is the spiritual center of all of Foding Palace. Wherever the relic is on any given day, the Hall of a Thousand Buddhas keeps its purpose unchanged: this is not a museum gallery. It is the Huazang World — the purest and most magnificent Buddha-realm described in Esoteric Buddhism.

Take three minutes to walk around the stupa. Circling clockwise three times is the most fundamental act of Buddhist veneration — every devout visitor does this. We'll move on to the Gallery of Ten Thousand Buddhas after that.

The ring-shaped corridor wrapping around the outside of the stupa is the Gallery of Ten Thousand Buddhas. It's not a single level — it spirals across three floors, at basement levels three, four, and five, each with a distinct cultural theme.

On basement level three, where we are now, the theme is Chinese Buddhist culture. The walls are inscribed with sutras and verses — "Do no evil; practice all that is good; purify your own mind — this is the teaching of all the Buddhas." These four lines are held by many Buddhist traditions to be the complete essence of the Dharma, reduced to its most concise form. The sixteen silk-mounted ink paintings on the walls depict the history of Buddhism's spread through China in the style of traditional Chinese figure painting.

Take the elevator down to basement level four, where the theme shifts to Indian Buddhist culture. The twenty Deva statues lining this corridor represent the guardian-deity system of Indian Buddhism; seven lacquer paintings convey core stories of Indian Buddhist doctrine. Notice the patterns on the ceiling and floor — the decorative language here is noticeably more Indian in character: the lotus motifs are more elaborate, the color palette warmer and more intense, deliberately evoking the cultural world in which Buddhism first came into being.

One more level down to basement level five: the theme here is the Jataka tales and relic culture. This level explains what a relic actually is and why it is so profoundly venerated in Buddhism. Video displays trace what happened after the Buddha's parinirvana: his relics were divided into eight portions and enshrined by eight kings, each building a stupa. Ten porcelain panel paintings depict the Sixteen Honored Ones of the Bhadrakalpa — Buddhism teaches that our current age will see one thousand Buddhas appear in the world, of whom the sixteen most important are known as the Sixteen Honored Ones of the Fortunate Eon.

After the Gallery of Ten Thousand Buddhas, we come to the innermost sanctum of Foding Palace — the Relic Crypt. Forty-four meters underground, with six floors of building and a mountain above you. The approach corridor is 66 meters long, divided into six sections corresponding to the Six Paramitas — the six practices of a Bodhisattva: moral discipline, generosity, patient endurance, diligent effort, meditative concentration, and wisdom. To walk the length of this corridor is to walk, symbolically, through a complete path of practice.

At the far end, the Crypt Hall is where the Buddha's skull relic rests. Please silence your phones and refrain from taking photographs. The Buddha's skull relic is the only surviving fragment of bone from the crown of the Buddha's head anywhere in the world. It was discovered in 2008 during excavations at the underground palace beneath the ruins of the Great Bao'en Temple, and was moved here in 2015 for permanent enshrinement. Whatever your beliefs, standing in the presence of this two-and-a-half-thousand-year-old relic, you may feel something that transcends religion — a compression of time, a quiet that is very hard to describe. Let's return to ground level. Next: Foding Pagoda.

Coming out of Foding Palace, look east — that tall tower in the Tang style is Foding Pagoda: 88 meters high, nine tiers, four-sided, roughly the height of a 25-story building.

Why build a pagoda right here, next to Foding Palace? The answer is rooted in history. During the Tang dynasty, the eastern peak of Niushoushan already had a pagoda — the Hongjue Temple Pagoda, octagonal and seven-tiered. The western peak once had a second pagoda called Pizhita, built in the Southern Dynasties period to honor a revered monk. East peak and west peak, two pagodas facing each other — this was the most celebrated panorama in the history of Nanjing: the "Twin Peaks, Twin Pagodas." In 1958, to mine the iron ore beneath the western peak, the Pizhita Pagoda was demolished. One pagoda vanished, and many older Nanjing residents still feel the loss. When Foding Pagoda was built in 2015, it was partly an act of restoration — giving Niushoushan back its twin-pagoda skyline.

Let's climb. Levels one through seven each contain murals depicting a chapter of the Buddha's life, from his birth to his parinirvana. The paintings use the traditional meticulous-brushwork style with mineral pigments, similar in approach to the Dunhuang murals. When you reach the fifth level, pause and look out — from that height, the geometric relationship between the large and small domes of Foding Palace becomes immediately clear: the robelike arc of the large dome folds gently over the golden dome below, 120 meters of curve wrapping tenderly around what was once a mine crater.

The eighth level is the most important space in the entire pagoda — the Foding Vajra Bell. Cast entirely in bronze, the bell is engraved around its body with the complete text of the Diamond Sutra, written in the calligraphy of Venerable Longxiang, the abbot of Foding Temple. Every year at midnight on New Year's Day and during the Spring Festival, the monastery holds a bell-ringing ceremony here. The bell is struck 108 times — one stroke for each earthly affliction, sending them off one by one. This is one of China's oldest New Year's traditions.

The ninth level — the Tathagata Hall — enshrines a seated statue of Vairocana Buddha. "Vairocana" in Sanskrit means "he who illuminates all things," the light that reaches every corner of the universe. This figure sits at the highest point of the pagoda, in the highest interior space on all of Niushoushan — a placement that is clearly intentional.

Best photo spot: stand on the eastern walkway of the ninth level and face east toward the eastern peak. The silhouette of the Hongjue Temple Pagoda will appear on the right side of your frame. Two pagodas, separated by thirteen hundred years, sharing a single photograph. That's the most story-laden shot on Niushoushan. Let's head down. Next stop: the Hongjue Temple Pagoda on the eastern peak.

Down from the western peak, through a bamboo grove, and now we've reached the summit of the eastern peak — Niutou Chan Cultural Park.

Look at the pagoda in front of you. Blue-gray brick, modest in height at 45 meters, seven tiers, octagonal. It looks almost plain — completely different from the crisp new Tang-style grandeur of Foding Pagoda. This is the Hongjue Temple Pagoda, the oldest surviving brick pagoda in Nanjing built in imitation of timber-frame construction. It was founded in the Tang dynasty, rebuilt in the Ming, and is over a thousand years old.

Here's the story behind it. The Book of Tang records that Emperor Daizong of the Tang dynasty — Li Yu — had a dream in which a Pratyekabuddha appeared before him. A Pratyekabuddha, meaning "independently enlightened one," refers to someone who achieves awakening entirely through their own effort, without a teacher, in a world without a Buddha's teaching. When the emperor woke, he was deeply moved and ordered Crown Prince Li Shi to build this pagoda on Niushoushan. The original spiritual occasion of the Hongjue Temple Pagoda, then, was a dream.

In 1956, something that shook the entire Chinese archaeological world came to light. Workers repairing the pagoda's foundation accidentally uncovered a crypt — inside were first-class national cultural relics: a gilded Lamaist stupa, a jade bottle, a gold reclining Buddha, and a celadon jar. The gilded Lamaist stupa is especially significant, because it is physical evidence of cultural exchange between Tibetan and Han Buddhism in Nanjing. The entire find is now in the Nanjing Museum and counts among its most treasured pieces. If you visit the museum, look for it in the history galleries.

The statue beside the pagoda is of the Chan master Farong. During the Zhenguan reign of the Tang dynasty — around the 630s CE — Farong came to Niushoushan. There was already a monastery here called Fogusi, later renamed Hongjue Temple, and Farong sat in meditation day and night in a cave on the mountain, eventually founding an entirely new school of Chan — the Niutou, or Ox Head, school.

What is the core teaching of Niutou Chan? Put simply: "No-mind aligns with the Way." Don't strive deliberately toward Buddhahood; just let go of all clinging, and right now, as you are, you are already Buddha. This was a radical idea at the time, because it collapsed the distance between "practice" and "awakening." Later, Huineng's Southern Chan school absorbed much of Niutou Chan's thinking — so the ideas of "sudden enlightenment" and "pointing directly at the mind" that would define Chan Buddhism for centuries all have their roots here.

Go inside and have a look at the exhibition hall — it traces Farong's life and the full Niutou Chan lineage: from Farong through Zhiyan, Huifang, Fazhi, Zhiwei, and Huizhong — six generations, known as the Six Patriarchs of Niutou. Now let's go down the mountain to meet another giant of history — Zheng He.

About fifteen minutes' walk down from the eastern peak, along the southern slope, brings us to Zheng He Cultural Park. Notice how quiet it is — a completely different atmosphere from the crowds at Foding Palace on the summit.

The tomb in front of you is the resting place of the greatest mariner in Chinese history — and arguably in all of ancient history: Zheng He. Between 1405 and 1433, over twenty-eight years, Zheng He led the largest fleet the world had ever seen — his flagship treasure ships stretched 126 meters long and 51 meters wide, and a single voyage could carry more than 27,000 men — on seven voyages across the Indian Ocean, reaching Southeast Asia, India, the Arabian Peninsula, and all the way down to the east coast of Africa. He reached these shores 87 years before Columbus reached the Americas, and 92 years before Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope. He was the first person in history to cross the Indian Ocean.

Look at the steps leading up to the tomb — four platforms, each with seven steps, twenty-eight steps in total. Those twenty-eight steps are not an arbitrary number. They correspond to seven voyages spread across twenty-eight years. Each step stands for a year. Climb them and you're measuring out the years Zheng He spent at sea on the world's oceans.

The tomb faces south and is notably plain — no carved stone officials lining a spirit road, no grand stele. For all that Zheng He was a fourth-rank Ming imperial official and a man of enormous achievement, his burial arrangements were deliberately kept modest. Many court officials of the time looked down on a eunuch's "maritime ventures" and considered the voyages foolish extravagance. History has settled that argument: today, virtually every port city with a Chinese community — Malacca, Jakarta, Sri Lanka, Zanzibar — has a temple honoring Zheng He or "Sanbao," the Three Jewels. He receives more incense abroad than he does at home.

The exhibition hall beside the tomb is arranged around a traditional courtyard. A bronze bust of Zheng He stands at the center, his gaze turned toward the sea to the south. Inside, multimedia installations offer interactive nautical experiences alongside historical displays tracing his fleet's voyages to nearly forty countries across Asia and Africa. Take a look at the scale model of a treasure ship and compare it mentally to Columbus's Santa Maria — the size difference says everything.

One suggestion before you leave: stand at the tomb and look south. Let your eyes carry past the treetops on the hillside below to the distant city of Nanjing. Zheng He set out from Longjiang Customs House on the Nanjing waterfront. He left from here. And in the end, he came back here. Now, our last stop — the stones left behind by another hero, eight hundred years ago.

That brings us to the end of today's tour of Niushoushan. We started at the culture wall in Foding Front Garden, where we read the mountain's story from beginning to end. We walked through Foding Temple and felt the particular stillness of a Tang-style Chan monastery. We descended into Foding Palace from a mine crater all the way to a relic crypt 44 meters underground. We stood between Foding Pagoda and Hongjue Temple Pagoda and watched two towers hold a gaze across thirteen hundred years. And we ended at Zheng He's tomb and Yue Fei's wall, where the mountain reminded us that its history holds not only the light of the Buddha, but also the sword and the sail.

Two things to keep in mind before you head out: First, watch your knees on the way down. The full route is about 7 kilometers on foot and has taken close to four hours — your legs have earned a rest. Second, if you'd like one more stop, the Southern Tang Imperial Tombs — the mausoleums of Li Bian, the founding emperor of Southern Tang, and Li Jing, the second emperor — are on the southern slope of Niushoushan, about two kilometers south of Zheng He Cultural Park. Two emperors resting alongside two generals and a mariner; Li Yu, the poet-emperor, sleeps on the other side of this same mountain, not far from his father and grandfather.

Thank you all for listening. Enjoy the rest of your time in Nanjing.