Baizhang Temple 百丈寺

About Baizhang Temple

The temple is about 1,200 years old, backed by mountain and facing farmland on a site of some 1,200 mu, and originally had seven ranks of halls. Huaihai presided here for twenty years. He is credited with four departures that shaped Chan practice: setting Chan communities apart from the older vinaya monasteries, insisting that monks farm under the maxim that a day without work is a day without food, codifying monastic discipline, and passing on the teaching. The rule he wrote, the Chanmen guishi, was transmitted later as the Baizhang qinggui, and the temple is described as the birthplace of that code and one of the important ancestral seats of Chinese Chan.

What a visitor sees is largely new. The temple burned during the war against Japan, and what was rebuilt afterwards was far smaller; a further restoration begun in 2004 under the abbot Benhuan, with the monk Dunxiong running the work, produced the present complex. It follows the traditional seven-hall monastic layout, with a Heavenly Kings hall, a main hall flanked by monks' quarters and refectory, a memorial hall to Huaihai and a combined building housing the dharma hall, a Guanyin pavilion, a Vairocana hall, a meditation hall and the scripture library. The mountain around it averages more than 600 metres, its main peak rises above 1,000 metres, and the annual mean temperature is about 16 degrees Celsius.

What to look for

• The granite rock behind the old temple's main hall carved with the four characters tianxia qinggui, traditionally attributed to the Tang calligrapher Liu Gongquan and listed as a Jiangxi provincial cultural heritage protection unit
• The Huaihai memorial hall, built as part of the restored complex
• The stupa holding the relics of the monk Benhuan, who took charge of the temple's revival in 2004
• The seven-hall monastic plan of the rebuilt temple, with the Heavenly Kings hall, main hall, monks' quarters and refectory, and the combined dharma hall, Guanyin pavilion, Vairocana hall, meditation hall and scripture library
• Other rock-cut features on Baizhangshan, among them the Huangniang tomb and Yehu Rock

Location & getting there

Getting to Baizhang Temple

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

• Search for 百丈寺 with 宜春市 and 奉新县.