Qing Dài Wo Qù

Huayan Temple

Useful Information

Location:	No. 151, Huayan Village, Jiulongpo District, Chongqing. West of Chongqing. (29.4922349, 106.4422009)
Open:	All year daily 8-17. [2026]
Fee:	Adults CNY 15. [2026]
Classification:	Cave Temple
Light:	Electric Light
Dimension:
Guided tours:	self guided
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	yes
Bibliography:
Address:	Huayan Temple, Zhonglian Hill, Jiulongpo District, Chongqing, Tel: +86-23-65260266.
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

2000	designated a Chongqing Municipal Cultural Relics Protection Unit by the Chongqing Municipal People’s Government.
1924	Wang Yunsong donates funds for its renovation, gets a stone inscription.
1988 to 1990	restoration by the Jiulongpo District government in three stages.

Description

华岩寺 (Huayan Temple) is a scenic area which is obviously not known for the cave temple but a much more spectacular and younger temple with a huge Buddha statue. There is no Dalaoshan (Big & Old Mountain) nearby, as some descriptions tell. Most descriptions tell about the golden Buddha statue but do not mention the cave temple. The scenic area is a wooded park around the artificial Huayan Lake which is 250 m wide and 1 km long, covering a total area of 16 ha. The temple is at the northern side of this park, the cave temple south of this main temple closer to the lake. The name is derived from the ancient Chinese word for flower, which is hua. But it does not refer to real flowers, it refers to water from the mountain stream, which splashes all year round just like scattering flowers. The cave where the temple was built is named Huayan Cave. Its is also called the "ancestral temple" of HuaYan Temple, what we interpret as the "old" temple which was succeeded by the spectacular new temple.

The temple has had a long history, but its origins are unknown. The oldest records are from 1599, during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD), It seems in the 15th year of the Wanli Reign of the Ming Dynasty (1587), the local gentry Yang Yi invited the monk Wuquan rebuilt the temple. This monk was not a hermit as we would interpret such a story in Europe, and actually had some money, and so the two funded the construction of a cave temple named Jiao’ai Temple. Later, during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911 AD) the temple grew and prestigious monks gathered here to practice Buddhist Rituals. The beginning of the official temple history starts with Master Shengke becoming the first abbot, some 400 years ago. Since this time the temple had 64 abbots. It was visited by numerous famous people including Gong Qing-gao, Gong Bing-quan, Lin Sen, Jiang Jie-shi, Feng Yu-xiang, Dai Ji-tao, Ju Zheng, Weng Wen-hao, They are identified by the inscriptions they left at the walls.