Wenshu Temple Grottoes 文殊寺石窟

About Wenshu Temple Grottoes

The site is a national key cultural relic protection unit and a national AAAA-grade tourist attraction. The county tourism bureau dates its founding to the Taining era of Emperor Ming of the Eastern Jin, with building and repair through the Wei and Jin periods and a peak in the Tang and Song. The temple is known in Tibetan as 嘉木样贡巴, which the page renders as 'Wenshu great temple', and belongs to the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism; the page says the name comes from a tradition, recorded in the 安多政教史, that Manjushri appeared at the spot.

The complex is divided into front-mountain and back-mountain areas, and the county page describes it as a place of several religions, Tibetan and Chinese Buddhism and Daoism among them. It lists seven component parts — 文殊寺, 百子楼, 普化寺, 千佛洞, 万佛塔, 五百罗汉堂 and 观音洞. The county page counts more than 30 caves of Wei, Jin, Sui, Tang, Western Xia, Yuan, Ming and Qing date, with more than 500 Buddhist images and over 1,200 square metres of murals, spread across tens of li of the winding Wenshu mountain.

The Gansu Daily feature, describing the same complex as 文殊山石窟, gives a different scale: more than 100 cave niches on the cliffs of the front and back mountains, distributed within 1.5 km north to south and 2.5 km east to west, including eight early central-pillar caves, one meditation cave and 28 temple sites in front of the caves. It names among the most important surviving caves the front-mountain Qianfo and Wanfo caves and the back-mountain Gufo and Qianfo caves, all central-pillar caves with domed ceilings and near-square plans, and records that the site was listed in the fifth batch of national key cultural relic protection units as material of the Northern Dynasties to Western Xia period.

What to look for

• The front-mountain Qianfo cave (前山千佛洞), which the Gansu Daily feature names among the most important surviving caves
• The Wanfo cave (万佛洞), also named in that list
• The back-mountain Gufo cave (后山古佛洞)
• The early central-pillar caves with domed ceilings and near-square plans — eight of them by the Gansu Daily feature's count
• The murals and Buddhist images the county page counts at over 1,200 square metres and more than 500 images respectively

Location & getting there

Getting to Wenshu Temple Grottoes

Check which interiors and courtyards are accessible. Active places of worship and protected monuments may have different visitor rules.

• Search for 文殊寺石窟 with 张掖市 and 肃南裕固族自治县.