Following a winding mountain road up through drifting clouds south of the Yangtze River in Qingyang County, Anhui Province, pilgrims step unexpectedly into a tranquil alpine basin more than six hundred meters above sea level called Jiuhuajie, ringed on every horizon by soaring granite crags shaped like unfolding lotus petals. At the very center of that mountain valley, facing a crescent-moon pond whose still waters mirror ancient pines, rises a white-walled, grey-tiled monastery anchored against the rocky foot of Furong Peak.
This is Mount Jiuhua (Jiuhua Shan, 九華山) and its ancestral mother monastery Huacheng Temple (Huacheng Si, 化成寺), situated in Chizhou Municipality, Anhui Province. Among the Four Sacred Mountains of Chinese Buddhism, Mount Jiuhua is venerated as the Lotus Buddha Realm (Lianhua Foguo) and the earthly bodhimanda of Great-Vow Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva (Dizang Wang Pusa), where the eighth-century Silla prince-monk Kim Qiaojue practiced austere meditation for seventy-five years and left behind an incorrupt body revered across East Asia.
IThe Great Vow of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva and the Silla Prince-Monk Kim Qiaojue
Spanning over 120 square kilometers of sculpted granite ridges and ninety-nine named peaks culminating at Shiwang Peak (Ten Kings Peak, 1,342 meters), the range was called Lingyang Mountain under the Han dynasty and Jiuzi Mountain (Nine Sons Mountain) during the Six Dynasties. Around the Tianbao era of the Tang dynasty (749 to 754 CE), the immortal poet Li Bai sailed past Qiupu along the Yangtze, beheld nine luminous peaks emerging above the mist like nine lotus blossoms, and composed his famous couplet: Wondrous existence divides the two breaths of yin and yang, the numinous mountain unfolds nine lotus flowers (Miaoyou fen er qi, Lingshan kai jiuhua). From Li Bai's verse, the mountain took the enduring name Jiuhua Shan (Nine-Lotus Mountain).
Every shrine across Mount Jiuhua and its central Huacheng Temple honors Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva (Sanskrit meaning Earth Treasury: steadfast as the earth in bearing all beings and rich as a treasury in boundless merit). Within the fourfold Mahayana ideal of the Four Sacred Mountains, while Manjushri embodies Great Wisdom, Samantabhadra Great Practice, and Guanyin Great Compassion, Ksitigarbha embodies the Great Vow to rescue suffering beings in the darkest realms of rebirth.
In the Sutra of the Past Vows of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva translated into Chinese during the Tang dynasty by Siksananda, Shakyamuni Buddha stands in the Trayastrimsa Heaven prior to his Parinirvana and solemnly entrusts all unawakened sentient beings of the future world to Ksitigarbha's tireless care, asking that no being fall into realms of torment for lack of a compassionate guide. Ksitigarbha's cosmic pledge is distilled in sixteen classical characters cherished throughout East Asian Buddhism: Until the hells are empty, I vow not to become a Buddha, only when all sentient beings are saved will I certify to Bodhi.
The name Huacheng Temple (Temple of the Conjured City) draws directly upon Chapter Seven of the Lotus Sutra, the Parable of the Conjured City. When a band of weary travelers crossing a perilous five-hundred-yojana desert toward a land of jewels grows exhausted halfway and wishes to turn back, their wise guide compassionately manifests a restful oasis city ahead (the Huacheng) where they can recover their strength, before revealing that the true Treasure Land of Buddhahood lies close at hand. Naming the central monastery of the Jiuhuajie basin Huacheng Temple expresses the aspiration that this mountain sanctuary serve as a peaceful haven where pilgrims replenish their spiritual resolve along the path to awakening.
What transformed Mount Jiuhua into Ksitigarbha's living earthly sanctuary was the convergence of Mahayana scripture with the historical life of Kim Qiaojue (Gim Gyo-gak in Korean, 696 to 794 CE), a royal prince of the kingdom of Silla on the Korean Peninsula. According to the Tang scholar Fei Guanqing's Record of Huacheng Temple on Mount Jiuhua composed in 813 CE (just nineteen years after the master's passing) and Zanning's Song Biographies of Eminent Monks, Prince Kim renounced court luxury at age twenty-four, shaved his head taking the monastic name Dizang (Ksitigarbha), and sailed alone across the Yellow Sea to Tang China accompanied only by his loyal white dog Shanting (Good Listener, the prototype of the mythical beast Diting seated beside Ksitigarbha statues).
Ascending the remote cliffs of Mount Jiuhua, Kim Qiaojue meditated day and night inside a stone cavern at Dongya (East Cliff), subsisting on wild mountain millet boiled with fine white kaolin clay (known locally as Guanyin earth). Deeply moved upon discovering the serene foreign ascetic seated beside a cracked earthen pot, local elders led by Zhuge Jie and the wealthy landowner Min Gong (Min Ranghe) vowed to build him a monastery. Tradition recounts that when Min Gong offered his estate, Kim Dizang requested only as much land as a single monastic robe (kasaya) could cover, and when he cast his robe aloft, its shadow miraculously draped all ninety-nine peaks of Jiuhua. Joyfully donating the entire mountain, Min Gong sent his son to ordain under the master as the monk Daoming and himself became a devoted lay patron, giving rise to the iconic triad of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva flanked by the young monk Daoming on the left and the bearded elder Min Gong on the right venerated in Chinese and Vietnamese temples for over a millennium.
Visitors exploring Mount Jiuhua should clearly distinguish four distinct landmarks across the mountain so as not to conflate their locations. First, Huacheng Temple in the level heart of Jiuhuajie town is the Founding Mother Monastery (Kaishan Zusi) where Kim Qiaojue resided as abbot, and since 1981 it also houses the Mount Jiuhua Historical Relics Museum displaying over two thousand sacred artifacts alongside active liturgical worship. Second, the stupa directly enshrining Kim Qiaojue's incorrupt body stands inside the Flesh-Body Treasure Hall (Roushen Baodian) crowning Shen'guang Ridge roughly 500 meters southwest of Huacheng Temple, reached via 81 or 99 granite steps. Third, Baisui Palace (Centenarian Palace) high on Chaxiao Peak enshrines the incorrupt body of the Ming monk Wuxia, author of the blood-ink sutra. Fourth, the colossal 99-meter outdoor bronze statue of Ksitigarbha is a modern landmark completed in 2012 at Dayuan Cultural Park at the mountain's base.
IIFrom Beidu's 401 CE Hermitage to the Sanctuary of Incorrupt Masters
Across sixteen centuries from its Eastern Jin beginnings through Tang imperial patronage and Ming-Qing revivals, Huacheng Temple has anchored nearly one hundred cloisters and temples scattered amid the pine-clad peaks of Mount Jiuhua.
- 401 CEIndian monk Beidu builds the earliest Huacheng hermitageIn the 5th year of the Long'an era under the Eastern Jin dynasty (401), the famed Indian monk Beidu (Cup-Crossing Monk) established a modest retreat named Huacheng on the mountain, planting the first Buddhist presence in the valley.
- c. 719 to 756Silla prince-monk Kim Qiaojue enters ascetic retreat on Mount JiuhuaCrossing the sea from Silla to Tang China, Kim Qiaojue settled in a rock cave on Mount Jiuhua, inspiring Squire Min Gong, his son Daoming, and disciples from both Tang China and Silla to gather around him.
- 781Tang Emperor Dezong bestows the imperial plaque Huacheng TempleIn the 2nd year of Jianzhong (781), Chizhou Prefect Zhang Yan rebuilt and expanded the ancient hermitage for Master Kim Qiaojue and petitioned the Tang court, which formally conferred the imperial plaque Huacheng Si.
- 794Passing of Kim Dizang at age 99 and manifestation of his incorrupt bodyOn the 30th day of the 7th lunar month in the 10th year of Zhenyuan (794), Kim Qiaojue bade farewell to his disciples and passed away seated in lotus posture inside a stone casket at age 99. When opened three years later, his body remained supple and uncorrupted, establishing Mount Jiuhua as Ksitigarbha's bodhimanda.
- 1391 to 1600Ming imperial patronage and gift of the Wanli TripitakaRepeatedly endowed by Ming emperors from Hongwu to Xuande and Wanli, Huacheng Temple received two imperial gifts of the complete 6,777-fascicle Northern Ming Wanli Tripitaka in 1586 and 1599 from Empress Dowager Cisheng and the Wanli Emperor.
- 1681 to 1890Qing Kangxi plaques and late-Guangxu architectural reconstructionRestored in 1681 under the Kangxi Emperor, who brushed the imperial plaque Sacred Realm of Jiuhua in 1705, the four-courtyard complex standing today was comprehensively rebuilt in Huizhou timber-and-brick masonry between 1887 and 1890 under the Guangxu reign.
- 1981 to 2013Historical Relics Museum and National Key Cultural Relic statusAdapted in 1981 to safeguard the mountain's rarest scriptures and Tang-Ming treasures alongside monastic devotion, Huacheng Temple was named a 1st-batch National Key Buddhist Monastery in 1983 and a 7th-batch National Key Cultural Relic in 2013.
The unbroken Mount Jiuhua tradition of incorrupt flesh-body masters. Beginning with Kim Qiaojue's uncorrupted body placed inside a stupa in 797 CE, Mount Jiuhua fostered a remarkable monastic phenomenon spanning the Tang, Ming, Qing, and contemporary eras. Cool high-altitude granite air, pure mineral spring water, austere herbal fasting prior to passing, and lifelong meditative absorption combined to preserve more than fourteen documented incorrupt monastic bodies (known in Chinese Buddhism as roushen pusa, flesh-body bodhisattvas), including Ming Master Wuxia at Baisui Palace and modern masters Daxing, Ciming, and Venerable Nun Renyi.
Master Wuxia's 81-fascicle Blood-Ink Avatamsaka Sutra. Preserved among the national treasures of Huacheng Temple is the complete 81-fascicle Avatamsaka Sutra comprising over 400,000 characters brushed in luminous crimson-gold ink on Xuan paper. Beginning in the 26th year of Ming Wanli (1598), Chan Master Haiyu (Dharma name Wuxia, 1513 to 1623), living inside Dripping-Water Cave atop Chaxiao Peak, pricked his tongue every few days to mix his own blood with finely ground gold dust, copying the scripture stroke by stroke over twenty-eight years until its completion before passing away seated upright in meditation at age 110.
IIIFour Huizhou-Style Courtyards, the Coiled-Dragon Caisson Ceiling, and the Sutra Treasury
Occupying roughly 3,500 square meters of built floor area at the center of historic Jiuhuajie, Huacheng Temple ascends a gentle granite slope from south to north across four enclosed courtyards: the Lingguan Hall (Mountain Gate), Hall of the Four Heavenly Kings, Mahavira Hall, and Sutra Library (Cangjing Lou). Situated in southern Anhui on the cultural border of ancient Huizhou, the monastery marries canonical Mahayana temple layout with towering whitewashed horse-head fire walls (matouqiang), small dark-grey tiles, and extraordinarily intricate wood, brick, and stone carvings.
In front of the temple gate spread the granite-paved Huacheng Plaza and the Crescent Moon Release Pond (Yueya Chi), while to the east stands the historic Bell Pavilion housing a Ming Wanli bronze Netherworld Bell over two meters tall whose solemn morning and evening tolls echo across the misty valley.
Serving as the Mountain Gate of the mother monastery, this entrance hall preserves ancient Tang and Ming granite column bases, stone thresholds, and terrace slabs. Its deep front eaves display openwork ginkgo and camphor wood carvings of Buddhist narratives, phoenixes bearing lotus stems, and lions playing with brocade balls.
Rebuilt between 1887 and 1890 during the Qing Guangxu reign over Kangxi foundations, the double-eaved main shrine features a magnificent recessed octagonal caisson dome (zaojing) directly above the central Buddha altar, sculpted in high relief with coiled golden dragons contending for a flaming pearl, complemented by imperial plaques brushed by the Kangxi Emperor (1705) and Qianlong Emperor (1765).
Perched on the highest stone terrace at the northern rear of the axis, this Ming-structured two-story timber library safeguards one of the best-preserved imperial editions of the Ming Wanli Northern Tripitaka in China: 6,777 accordion-folded woodblock volumes printed on durable cotton paper and bestowed by the Ming court in 1586 and 1599.
Inside Huacheng Temple's relic galleries are preserved over 2,000 sacred objects spanning the Tang through Qing dynasties, led by the heavy gilt-bronze seal inscribed Precious Seal of Ksitigarbha Benefiting Beings dated to the Tang Zhenyuan era (794 CE), Ming Xuande imperial porcelains, personal relics associated with Kim Qiaojue, and original fascicles of Master Wuxia's gold-and-blood Avatamsaka Sutra.
Embracing the southern forecourt of Huacheng Temple is a spring-fed half-moon pond spanned by an arched stone bridge where turtles and carp swim beneath clear mountain water. Flagstone lanes radiate from the plaza up toward the Flesh-Body Treasure Hall on Shen'guang Ridge to the southwest and Diting Pagoda to the east.
| Feature | Specifications and date | Verified source |
|---|---|---|
| Location and elevation | Center of Jiuhuajie alpine basin at approx. 640 m (Shiwang Peak rises to 1,342 m) | Mount Jiuhua Scenic Area Administration (jiuhuashan.gov.cn) |
| Founding dates | 401 CE Eastern Jin hermitage, imperially established as Huacheng Temple in 781 CE | Record of Huacheng Temple on Mount Jiuhua (Fei Guanqing, 813 CE) |
| Extant architectural scale | Approx. 3,500 sq m floor area across 4 stepped courtyards rebuilt in 1887 to 1890 | 7th Batch National Key Cultural Relics Dossier (2013) |
| Scriptural national treasures | 6,777-fascicle Ming Wanli Tripitaka (1586, 1599) and 81-fascicle Blood-Ink Avatamsaka Sutra | Mount Jiuhua Historical Relics Museum, Encyclopaedia Britannica |
| Kim Dizang's incorrupt body | Passed away 30th day of 7th lunar month, 794 CE at age 99 (enshrined at nearby Flesh-Body Hall) | Song Biographies of Eminent Monks, Mount Jiuhua Gazetteer |
| Satellite coordinates | 30.4809 degrees N, 117.7973 degrees E | Wikidata (Q10901768), OpenStreetMap |
IVThe Lie of the Land and Orientation
In Buddhist teaching, Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva enters the steepest, darkest realms of existence out of boundless compassion rather than seeking worldly geomantic fortune. Even so, ever since Fei Guanqing's 813 CE Tang inscription and classical Anhui gazetteers, Chinese literati and mountain masters have marveled at the natural topography of Jiuhuajie surrounding Huacheng Temple as a rare high-mountain formation: a level lotus receptacle cradled within nine encircling granite petals. The section below reads this terrain through the library's comparative framework of traditional landform geomancy.
Examined within the mountain spine of southern Anhui at coordinates 30.4809 degrees north, 117.7973 degrees east, Mount Jiuhua branches northward from the Huangshan range toward the southern bank of the Yangtze River. Ordinarily, granite ranges above six hundred meters consist of sheer cliffs and rushing gorges unable to hold a settlement. Right at Jiuhuajie, however, the ridges suddenly open into a sheltered upland basin while towering peaks rise in a complete circle around its rim like unfolding lotus petals shielding the seed pod at the center, forming a classic lotus-heart sanctuary node. Rising directly north behind Huacheng Temple is Furong Peak (Hibiscus Lotus Peak), serving as a solid Black Tortoise backing, while on the east, the precipitous cliffs of Dongya and Mokong Ridge stand lofty as the Green Dragon, on the west, Baiyun Mountain and Tiger-Shape Ridge curve inward as the White Tiger, and to the south, wooded Shen'guang Ridge (where Kim Dizang's stupa rests) stands as the immediate front footstool screen backed in the distance by the soaring peaks of Shiwang and Chaxiao.
In terms of compass facing and water management, the central axis of Huacheng Temple sits North and faces South (angled gently south-southeast along the foot of Furong Peak), stepping up four stone terraces from Lingguan Hall to the Sutra Library so its rear rests firmly against native bedrock. Equally crucial to this upland basin is its locked water exit and gathering pond: directly before the temple gate curves the Crescent Moon Release Pond, embracing the plaza with its inward arc and collecting clear waters from Longxi Stream before the stream slips out through a narrow rock gorge down the mountain. Ringed by wind-blocking peaks and humidified by the central pond, the Jiuhuajie basin holds gentle mountain mist throughout the four seasons, creating a cool, stable microclimate that has helped preserve ancient woodblock sutras, timber carvings, and incorrupt monastic bodies across the centuries.
VThe Seventh Lunar Month of Filial Piety and Kinship with Vietnamese Buddhism
Monastic observance at Huacheng Temple and across Mount Jiuhua follows the traditional lunar calendar, reaching its annual spiritual crescendo throughout the entire seventh lunar month (the Month of Filial Gratitude and Ksitigarbha devotion), spanning from the Ullambana assembly on the 15th day to the grand vigil on the 30th day of the 7th lunar month (held on the 29th in hollow lunar months). The table below summarizes the key annual festivals.
| Date | Calendar system | Observance or festival | Traditional rites at Huacheng Temple and Jiuhuajie |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30th day of the 7th month (29th in a 29-day month) | Lunar calendar | Feast of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva and Nirvana Anniversary of Kim Dizang | The supreme holy day of Mount Jiuhua commemorating Kim Qiaojue's passing in 794 CE. Monks and tens of thousands of pilgrims chant the Ksitigarbha Sutra, toll 108 strokes of the Netherworld Bell, carry lotus lamps around Huacheng Pond, and keep all-night stupa vigil at the Flesh-Body Hall. |
| 15th day of the 7th month | Lunar calendar | Ullambana Festival and Water-and-Land Deliverance Assembly | Conclusion of the monastic summer retreat paired with filial offerings for parents and ancestors across seven lifetimes, featuring seven-day Water-and-Land Dharma rites across Jiuhuajie monasteries. |
| Lunar New Year's Eve through the 15th day of the 1st month | Lunar calendar | New Year Bell-Tolling and Spring Pilgrimage to the Founding Monastery | Midnight tolling of the Ming Wanli bronze bell beside Huacheng Plaza for national peace and family well-being, followed by spring incense offerings honoring the founding patriarch. |
| 7th and 8th lunar months annually | Lunar calendar (paired with August or September solar dates) | Mount Jiuhua Ksitigarbha Buddhist Cultural Festival | Alms-round processions of hundreds of monks, special exhibitions from the Huacheng Sutra Library, and international Dharma exchanges uniting pilgrims from China, South Korea (ancient homeland of Kim Qiaojue), Vietnam, and Southeast Asia. |
Enduring presence on Vietnamese temple altars and in Vietnamese filial spirituality. Scarcely any sacred mountain outside Vietnam is represented as visibly inside Vietnamese pagodas as Mount Jiuhua. Stepping into the Patriarchs' Hall or Ksitigarbha Shrine of historic temples across northern, central, and southern Vietnam (such as Vinh Nghiem Pagoda, Bo Da Pagoda, or Tran Quoc Pagoda), worshippers immediately encounter the golden figure of Ksitigarbha wearing the five-leafed Vairocana crown and holding his six-ringed pewter staff and wish-fulfilling pearl, attended on his left and right by two figures from eighth-century Mount Jiuhua history: the young monk Daoming with palms joined and his bearded father Squire Min Gong, the generous lay donor of the mountain.
Across Vietnamese family life, the Sutra of the Past Vows of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva (whose antique carved woodblocks are treasured in Truc Lam and Linji monastic archives in Bac Giang, Hanoi, and Hue) is chanted throughout funeral forty-nine-day memorial periods and during the seventh-lunar-month Vu Lan season of filial piety. Even Mount Jiuhua's celebrated heritage of incorrupt flesh-body meditation masters finds a revered parallel in 17th-century Vietnam at Dau Pagoda (Thuong Tin, Hanoi), where the full-body lacquer-preserved remains of Chan Masters Vu Khac Minh and Vu Khac Truong have been venerated for nearly four centuries, making a pilgrimage to Huacheng Temple deeply resonant for Vietnamese Buddhists.
VILocation And How To Get There
- Address
- Số 9 đường Huacheng, phố cổ Jiuhuajie (Cửu Hoa Nhai), huyện Qingyang (Thanh Dương), thành phố Chizhou (Trì Châu), tỉnh An Huy (安徽省池州市青阳县九华山风景区九华街化成路9号)
- Getting there
- Mount Jiuhua is located in Qingyang County, Chizhou Municipality, Anhui Province. Travelers can take high-speed rail to Chizhou Railway Station or Jiuhuashan High-Speed Station in Qingyang, or fly into Chizhou Jiuhuashan Airport, and board a direct shuttle bus to the Kecun Visitor Center at the foot of the mountain. Official park coaches ascend the mountain road straight to Jiuhuajie Station, just a short walk along flagstone streets to Huacheng Plaza and Huacheng Temple.
- Coordinates
- 30.4809, 117.7973
Huacheng Temple serves simultaneously as the active founding mother monastery of Mount Jiuhua and as a national repository safeguarding fragile Ming and Tang paper manuscripts. Visitors are asked to maintain quiet reverence, light no more than three eco-friendly incense sticks at the outdoor censer in accordance with forest-fire and heritage rules, and strictly avoid flash photography or touching display cases inside the halls housing the Blood-Ink Avatamsaka Sutra and Wanli Tripitaka.
Nearby places in the library
VIIContribute To This Page
Contribute photos, information or video for Mount Jiuhua and Huacheng Temple, Anhui
Góp ảnh, thông tin hoặc video cho Núi Cửu Hoa Sơn và Chùa Hóa Thành, An HuyEveryone is welcome to enrich this page: a photo you took, a detail the page misses, a short video. Every contribution is read and answered.
Thầy Ưng Khiêm mời cộng đồng cùng làm giàu trang này. Ảnh chụp tận nơi, một chi tiết lịch sử chưa được nhắc, một đoạn video ngắn: mọi đóng góp đều được đọc và trả lời.
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?Quick Questions
Where did the name Mount Jiuhua come from, and who named it?
Known in earlier eras as Lingyang Mountain and Jiuzi Mountain, the range received its enduring name in the mid-8th century from the Tang poet Li Bai. Gazing up from the Yangtze River as nine granite peaks emerged through the clouds like blooming lotus flowers, Li Bai wrote the verse The numinous mountain unfolds nine lotus flowers, inspiring the name Jiuhua Shan.
Who was Kim Qiaojue, and why is he revered as the golden manifestation of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva?
Kim Qiaojue (696 to 794 CE) was a royal prince of the Korean kingdom of Silla who ordained under the Dharma name Dizang, sailed to Tang China, and meditated in caves on Mount Jiuhua for 75 years. When his stone casket was opened three years after he died seated in meditation at age 99, his body remained supple and uncorrupted, matching scriptural signs of a great Bodhisattva and earning him reverence as Golden Ksitigarbha.
What role does Huacheng Temple hold on Mount Jiuhua, and what national treasures does it preserve?
Standing at the center of Jiuhuajie town, Huacheng Temple is the Founding Mother Monastery of Mount Jiuhua (traced to a 401 CE hermitage and imperially established in 781 CE for Kim Qiaojue). It safeguards over 2,000 historic relics, led by the 6,777-fascicle Ming Wanli Tripitaka, the 81-fascicle Blood-Ink Avatamsaka Sutra brushed by Ming Master Wuxia, and a 794 CE Tang gilt-bronze Ksitigarbha seal.
Who are the two attendant figures standing beside Ksitigarbha statues in Chinese and Vietnamese temples?
The two attendants flanking Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva represent real eighth-century patrons of Mount Jiuhua: on one side stands the wealthy Qingyang elder Squire Min Gong, who donated the entire mountain to Kim Qiaojue, and on the other stands the monk Daoming, Min Gong's son who ordained as Kim Qiaojue's personal disciple.
Is Kim Qiaojue's incorrupt body enshrined inside Huacheng Temple itself?
Huacheng Temple is the mother monastery where Kim Qiaojue lived and taught during his lifetime and today houses the mountain's scriptural and historical treasures in central Jiuhuajie. The stupa directly enshrining his incorrupt remains stands inside the Flesh-Body Treasure Hall (Roushen Baodian) atop Shen'guang Ridge, about 500 meters southwest of Huacheng Temple.