Mt. Jiuhua Shan
Where the bodhisattva who empties hell receives prayers for the dead
Chizhou, Anhui, China
Plan this visit
Practical context before you go
A full day is the minimum. The core temples in Jiuhua Street can be visited in half a day. The climb to Tiantai Peak adds three to four hours, though a cable car reduces this. Two days are recommended to experience both the village temples and the summit area at a meaningful pace. Some devoted pilgrims spend multiple days completing the full prostration pilgrimage.
Located in Qingyang County, Chizhou City, Anhui Province. The nearest airport is Chizhou Jiuhua Shan Airport with limited flights. Nanjing Lukou International Airport and Hefei Xinqiao International Airport offer wider connections with onward bus service. High-speed rail to Chizhou Station, then bus to the mountain entrance, approximately one hour. Admission fee for the scenic area is approximately 160 CNY. Shuttle buses run from the entrance to Jiuhua Street. A cable car to the Tiantai area is available for a fee. Accommodation ranges from temple guesthouses to hotels in Jiuhua Street. Mobile phone signal is available in the village and at major temples; it may be unreliable on remote trails. No information on emergency services was available at time of writing; check with the scenic area management for current details.
Jiuhua Shan is an active Buddhist pilgrimage site where temple etiquette should be observed throughout. The mountain is entirely vegetarian. Photography is restricted inside halls housing the incorrupt bodies.
At a glance
- Coordinates
- 30.4639, 117.8244
- Suggested duration
- A full day is the minimum. The core temples in Jiuhua Street can be visited in half a day. The climb to Tiantai Peak adds three to four hours, though a cable car reduces this. Two days are recommended to experience both the village temples and the summit area at a meaningful pace. Some devoted pilgrims spend multiple days completing the full prostration pilgrimage.
- Access
- Located in Qingyang County, Chizhou City, Anhui Province. The nearest airport is Chizhou Jiuhua Shan Airport with limited flights. Nanjing Lukou International Airport and Hefei Xinqiao International Airport offer wider connections with onward bus service. High-speed rail to Chizhou Station, then bus to the mountain entrance, approximately one hour. Admission fee for the scenic area is approximately 160 CNY. Shuttle buses run from the entrance to Jiuhua Street. A cable car to the Tiantai area is available for a fee. Accommodation ranges from temple guesthouses to hotels in Jiuhua Street. Mobile phone signal is available in the village and at major temples; it may be unreliable on remote trails. No information on emergency services was available at time of writing; check with the scenic area management for current details.
Pilgrim tips
- Located in Qingyang County, Chizhou City, Anhui Province. The nearest airport is Chizhou Jiuhua Shan Airport with limited flights. Nanjing Lukou International Airport and Hefei Xinqiao International Airport offer wider connections with onward bus service. High-speed rail to Chizhou Station, then bus to the mountain entrance, approximately one hour. Admission fee for the scenic area is approximately 160 CNY. Shuttle buses run from the entrance to Jiuhua Street. A cable car to the Tiantai area is available for a fee. Accommodation ranges from temple guesthouses to hotels in Jiuhua Street. Mobile phone signal is available in the village and at major temples; it may be unreliable on remote trails. No information on emergency services was available at time of writing; check with the scenic area management for current details.
- Modest clothing appropriate for temple visits. Many pilgrims wear yellow or brown Buddhist robes or sashes, but visitors in ordinary clothes are welcome. Comfortable walking shoes are essential for mountain paths. Layers are advisable for temperature changes between valley and summit.
- Photography is generally restricted inside halls housing the incorrupt bodies — follow posted signs and the guidance of temple staff. Exterior photography is freely permitted. Be sensitive when photographing people in prayer, particularly those who are visibly grieving.
- The emotional intensity of worship at Jiuhua Shan, particularly during the Ullambana Festival, is substantial. Many pilgrims are praying for recently deceased loved ones and are in visible grief. This is not a place for casual tourism during peak devotional periods unless you are prepared to be in the presence of genuine sorrow. The incorrupt bodies can be unsettling for visitors unprepared for the directness of the encounter.
Pilgrim glossary
- Bodhisattva
- An enlightened being who postpones full nirvana to help others toward awakening.
- Sutra
- A canonical Buddhist scripture, often chanted as part of practice.
- Zen
- A Japanese Buddhist school emphasizing seated meditation and direct insight.
Continue exploring
Overview
Jiuhua Shan rises from the Anhui countryside as one of China's Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains, dedicated to Ksitigarbha — the bodhisattva who vowed not to achieve buddhahood until all hells are emptied. For over twelve centuries, pilgrims have climbed its forested slopes to pray for deceased loved ones, venerate the incorrupt body of the Korean monk Kim Gyo Gak, and encounter the concentrated weight of grief transformed into devotion.
There are places where sorrow is not managed but honored. Jiuhua Shan is one of them. This mountain in Anhui Province, one of China's Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains, is where millions of Chinese Buddhists come to pray for the dead — not in the abstract but with the raw particularity of a mother's name, a father's face, a child who did not grow old.
The mountain belongs to Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, called Dizang Wang Pusa in Chinese — the one who descends into the darkest realms of existence to guide suffering beings toward the light. His vow is among the most radical commitments in world religion: he will not rest until every hell is emptied. The Korean monk Kim Gyo Gak came here in the Tang Dynasty, practiced for seventy-five years, and upon his death at ninety-nine, his body was found incorrupt. It was understood as a manifestation of Ksitigarbha himself. That gilded body still rests in the Roushen Hall at Tiantai Peak, and the faithful still come.
Across the mountain's ninety-nine peaks — traditionally said to resemble nine lotus flowers, a name given by the poet Li Bai — approximately eighty to ninety-nine temples sustain a monastic community of hundreds. The air carries incense smoke and the sound of sutra chanting. Some pilgrims ascend the entire mountain through full-body prostrations, pressing forehead to stone with each step. This is not performance. This is prayer made physical, offered by the body when words are insufficient.
Context and lineage
Kim Gyo Gak, a Korean monk who practiced on Jiuhua Shan for seventy-five years during the Tang Dynasty, became identified as a manifestation of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva after his body was found incorrupt. This identification transformed the mountain into one of China's Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains and the primary site for prayers on behalf of the dead.
The mountain was known long before its Buddhist identity. The poet Li Bai visited around 730 CE and, gazing at its peaks, wrote: 'Looking up at Jiuhua Peak, the sky's green lotus flowers bloom in nine brilliancies.' His poem gave the mountain its name — Jiuhua, Nine Glories or Nine Flowers.
But the mountain's soul arrived from Korea. Kim Gyo Gak, a monk of possible royal or aristocratic background, came to Tang Dynasty China and climbed Jiuhua Shan, finding a natural cave where he settled into practice. He lived on herbs and spring water. He meditated. For seventy-five years, he remained on the mountain.
When Kim Gyo Gak died in 794 CE at the age of ninety-nine, his body was sealed in a burial urn. Three years later, when the urn was opened, the body was found completely preserved — joints flexible, skin warm. This was recognized as the mark of extraordinary spiritual attainment, and Kim Gyo Gak was identified as an incarnation of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, the one whose vow encompasses all suffering beings.
A local landowner named Wen-ke and his son, moved by Kim Gyo Gak's devotion, donated land for temple construction and eventually became monks themselves. They are commemorated alongside Kim Gyo Gak in the tradition of the Three Saints of Jiuhua.
The religious lineage at Jiuhua Shan flows from Kim Gyo Gak's individual practice to a mountain-wide monastic tradition spanning over twelve hundred years. The Chan (Zen) school of Buddhism has been prominent, but the mountain's defining identity is devotional rather than sectarian — it is Ksitigarbha's mountain, and Ksitigarbha devotion crosses all Buddhist lineages in China. The tradition of bodily preservation continued after Kim Gyo Gak, with several later monks' bodies found incorrupt and enshrined at various temples. The mountain weathered the Cultural Revolution and has fully recovered as both a monastic center and pilgrimage destination.
Kim Gyo Gak (金乔觉)
A Korean monk, possibly of royal lineage, who practiced on Jiuhua Shan for seventy-five years during the Tang Dynasty. His incorrupt body, found three years after his death in 794 CE, was identified as a manifestation of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, establishing the mountain's sacred identity.
Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva (Dizang Wang Pusa)
The bodhisattva who vowed not to achieve buddhahood until all hells are emptied — the most radical compassionate commitment in Mahayana Buddhism. Jiuhua Shan is his earthly bodhimanda, the place where his presence is most concentrated.
Li Bai
The Tang Dynasty poet who visited the mountain around 730 CE and gave it the name Jiuhua — Nine Glories — in a poem comparing its peaks to lotus flowers. His words became the mountain's name.
Wen-ke (闵公)
A local landowner who donated land for temple construction after being inspired by Kim Gyo Gak's practice. He and his son both became monks, commemorated as two of the Three Saints of Jiuhua.
Why this place is sacred
Jiuhua Shan gathers its numinous quality from the convergence of living devotion, the physical presence of incorrupt bodies, and the mountain's deep association with the most compassionate vow in Buddhist tradition — the commitment to enter suffering for the sake of all beings.
The thinness of Jiuhua Shan operates through grief and compassion simultaneously. This is not a cheerful mountain. It is a place where people bring their heaviest burdens — the loss of parents, children, spouses — and lay them before a bodhisattva whose entire purpose is to descend into darkness on behalf of others.
The incorrupt body of Kim Gyo Gak, gilded and enshrined in the Roushen Hall for over twelve hundred years, serves as the mountain's spiritual anchor. Here is a man who practiced for seventy-five years on this mountain and whose physical form refused to decay. Whatever one makes of this — miracle, atmospheric conditions, the chemistry of devotion — the body remains. It draws thousands daily. The encounter is not abstract. You stand before it and something in the room shifts.
Other temples on the mountain preserve additional incorrupt bodies of eminent monks, each displayed in glass-sided shrines. These are not relics in the Western sense — objects venerated from a distance. They are presences. The tradition holds that the bodies remain because the spiritual attainment of these practitioners transformed the physical substrate itself.
But the deepest thinness at Jiuhua Shan may be generated by the pilgrims themselves. During the Ullambana Festival in the seventh lunar month — when the boundary between the living and dead is believed to be most permeable — the mountain fills with hundreds of thousands of people praying with an intensity that saturates the air. The sound of the Ksitigarbha Sutra being chanted in temple after temple, the smoke from incense and paper offerings, the sight of people in genuine tears before golden images — these create conditions where something other than ordinary reality seems possible.
Jiuhua Shan was established as the earthly bodhimanda — the place of practice — of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva following the death of the Korean monk Kim Gyo Gak in 794 CE. His incorrupt body was identified as a manifestation of the bodhisattva whose vow to empty all hells made him the most important figure in Chinese Buddhism for intercession on behalf of the dead. The mountain became the primary site in Chinese Buddhism for funerary prayers, memorial services, and devotions directed toward the afterlife.
The mountain's Buddhist identity solidified rapidly after the enshrinement of Kim Gyo Gak's body in 797 CE. Temple construction accelerated through the Song Dynasty, and by the Ming Dynasty, Jiuhua Shan was formally recognized as one of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains alongside Wutai Shan (Manjushri), Emei Shan (Samantabhadra), and Putuo Shan (Guanyin). The Qing Dynasty saw the mountain hosting over one hundred temples.
The Cultural Revolution inflicted damage, but the post-1980s era brought extensive restoration and a resurgence of pilgrimage activity. Today the mountain functions simultaneously as one of China's most important religious sites and a significant tourism destination, with millions visiting annually. The monastic community has rebuilt, and daily worship continues uninterrupted at dozens of active temples. The mountain village of Jiuhua Street, clustered around the ancient Huacheng Temple, creates a unique settlement where sacred and secular life interpenetrate completely.
Traditions and practice
Daily worship at dozens of active temples, pilgrimage to the Roushen Hall to venerate Kim Gyo Gak's incorrupt body, chanting of the Ksitigarbha Sutra, and full-body prostration ascents define the mountain's devotional life. The Ullambana Festival in the seventh lunar month is the most intense period.
The traditional practice at Jiuhua Shan centers on Ksitigarbha devotion — prayers offered to the bodhisattva who descends into the darkest realms to guide suffering beings toward the light. The Ksitigarbha Sutra is one of the most chanted texts in Chinese Buddhism, and at Jiuhua Shan it is recited continuously in the major temples. Pilgrims visit the Roushen Hall to venerate Kim Gyo Gak's incorrupt body, understanding this encounter not as viewing a relic but as entering the bodhisattva's presence.
Full-body prostration pilgrimage is among the most demanding devotional practices on the mountain. Pilgrims progress up the mountain through repeated full-body bows — standing, stretching flat on the ground with forehead touching stone, rising, stepping forward, and repeating. Some cover the entire ascent this way. The practice represents complete surrender of the ego and the offering of the body itself as prayer.
Burning of incense and paper offerings for the dead is constant at the mountain's major temples. The massive incense burners outside the principal halls produce smoke that is pervasive and fragrant. Paper money and other ritual goods for the deceased are burned in dedicated furnaces.
Contemporary practice continues all traditional forms with undiminished intensity. Daily worship services begin before dawn at all active temples. The Ullambana Festival in the seventh lunar month draws hundreds of thousands for memorial services, sutra chanting, and offerings for the dead. This is the mountain's most concentrated period of devotion.
Temple vegetarian restaurants serve meals that have become famous across China — some visitors come specifically for the cuisine, which represents the Buddhist precept of non-harming applied to the table. Some monasteries offer short-term stays and Buddhist study programs for lay practitioners.
The veneration of the mountain's multiple incorrupt bodies — not only Kim Gyo Gak's but those of several later eminent monks, each displayed in glass-sided shrines at various temples — remains a distinctive feature of Jiuhua Shan pilgrimage. These encounters are visceral. The bodies are not hidden behind altars but presented directly to view.
Begin at the Huacheng Temple in Jiuhua Street, the oldest temple and Kim Gyo Gak's original practice site. Light three sticks of incense and place them in the burner with both hands. Move through the village temples before ascending to Tiantai Peak, either on foot or by cable car.
At the Roushen Hall, allow time before entering. The queue of pilgrims is itself a teaching — watch how others approach. Inside, stand quietly. Let the weight of the room — the smoke, the chanting, the grief, the faith — settle into you. You do not need to share the theological framework to feel what is present.
If a temple meal is available, take it. Eating vegetarian food prepared by monks in a hall where others eat in silence is a practice of attention.
For those with the physical capacity and inclination, even a short section of prostration practice on the mountain paths — ten bows, twenty — offers a bodily encounter with humility that no amount of reading can approximate.
Chinese Mahayana Buddhism — Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva Devotion
ActiveJiuhua Shan is the earthly bodhimanda of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, whose vow to empty all hells before achieving buddhahood makes him the most radical figure of compassion in Mahayana Buddhism. The mountain is the primary site in Chinese Buddhism for prayers on behalf of the dead.
Veneration of Kim Gyo Gak's incorrupt body at the Roushen Hall, chanting of the Ksitigarbha Sutra, full-body prostration pilgrimage, burning of incense and paper offerings for the dead, vegetarian meals at temple dining halls, and participation in the Ullambana Festival ceremonies during the seventh lunar month.
Experience and perspectives
The experience of Jiuhua Shan moves between the devotional intensity of temple worship and the contemplative quiet of mountain paths. The core pilgrimage ascends from the village of Jiuhua Street through forested slopes to the Roushen Hall at Tiantai Peak, where Kim Gyo Gak's incorrupt body is enshrined.
Arrival at Jiuhua Shan begins with a bus ride from the scenic area entrance up to Jiuhua Street — a mountain village built around the Huacheng Temple, where narrow streets wind between temples, vegetarian restaurants, shops selling incense and prayer beads, and simple guesthouses. The atmosphere is unlike any other Chinese mountain town. Monks in grey robes and pilgrims in yellow sashes move through the same streets as tourists, and the sound of chanting drifts from temple halls at every turn.
The Huacheng Temple, said to be Kim Gyo Gak's original practice site, anchors the village. It is the oldest and most historically significant temple on the mountain, and its halls are dense with incense smoke and the quiet motion of people making offerings. From here, the pilgrimage ascends.
The path to Tiantai Peak passes through forests and along ridgelines, with temples appearing at intervals like stations of devotion. A cable car is available for those who prefer it, but walking the mountain reveals something the cable car cannot: the gradual intensification of atmosphere as you climb. The temples grow smaller and quieter. The air cools. The views open.
At the Roushen Hall, the Hall of the Flesh Body, the pilgrimage reaches its culmination. This building with its distinctive golden roof houses Kim Gyo Gak's gilded incorrupt body in a pagoda-shrine. The hall is dense with pilgrims — many in tears, many on their knees, many chanting the Ksitigarbha Sutra with an urgency that fills the room. This is the mountain's heart. Whatever brought you here, this room will ask something of you.
The descent offers time to absorb what the ascent delivered. Some pilgrims take vegetarian meals at temple dining halls — Jiuhua Shan's temple cuisine is renowned across China. Others sit quietly in temple courtyards, watching the mountain's clouds shift and reform around the peaks.
Enter through the scenic area entrance and take the shuttle bus to Jiuhua Street. Begin at the Huacheng Temple in the village center. The pilgrimage to Tiantai Peak can be made on foot (3-4 hours up) or by cable car. The Roushen Hall is the primary devotional destination. The Zhiyuan Temple in the village is the largest temple complex and worth extended time. Wear comfortable walking shoes, carry water, and bring layers for the summit. All food on the mountain is vegetarian. If you come during the Ullambana Festival in the seventh lunar month, expect massive crowds and an atmosphere of intense devotion.
Jiuhua Shan can be approached as a monastic center, a pilgrimage site, a case study in cross-cultural religious transmission, or a landscape where grief and compassion become inseparable. Each lens reveals dimensions the others miss.
Scholars of Chinese Buddhism recognize Jiuhua Shan as a site of particular importance for understanding how Mahayana Buddhism was localized in China. The identification of a Korean monk as a bodhisattva incarnation — and the subsequent creation of a mountain-wide pilgrimage infrastructure around that identification — reveals the creative processes by which Chinese Buddhist communities claimed universal Mahayana concepts for specific landscapes and lineages. The tradition of bodily preservation and gilding is studied as a distinctively East Asian Buddhist practice that provides material evidence of spiritual attainment. The mountain's enduring vitality as a pilgrimage destination demonstrates the continuing relevance of Ksitigarbha devotion in Chinese religious life.
In Chinese Buddhist understanding, Jiuhua Shan is where Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva continues his work for the salvation of all beings trapped in the cycle of rebirth, particularly those in the hell realms. Kim Gyo Gak's incorrupt body is understood not as a relic but as a living presence — Ksitigarbha dwelling in the world in physical form. Prayers offered at the mountain reach the bodhisattva with particular directness and power. The vegetarian rule governing the entire mountain reflects the Buddhist precept of non-harming and Ksitigarbha's particular compassion for all sentient beings.
In Chinese folk religious understanding, Jiuhua Shan is where the boundary between the world of the living and the underworld is thinnest — a perception intensified during the Ullambana period. Some folk practitioners visit the mountain to communicate with deceased relatives or to resolve spiritual disturbances attributed to unsettled spirits. The incorruptible bodies are sometimes interpreted through the lens of qi cultivation, with the monks' practice understood to have refined their vital energy to the point of physical transformation.
The precise biographical details of Kim Gyo Gak — his exact birth date, family background, and the circumstances of his departure from Korea — remain debated. The process by which certain monks' bodies became incorruptible while others did not is not fully understood. The complete inventory of the mountain's temples across different historical periods has not been fully reconstructed. The mountain's religious history during the Cultural Revolution and its subsequent recovery have not been comprehensively documented in accessible sources.
Visit planning
Jiuhua Shan is in Qingyang County, Anhui Province, accessible from Chizhou or Nanjing. Plan at least a full day; two days recommended for a contemplative pace. The seventh lunar month (Ullambana Festival) is the most spiritually intense period.
Located in Qingyang County, Chizhou City, Anhui Province. The nearest airport is Chizhou Jiuhua Shan Airport with limited flights. Nanjing Lukou International Airport and Hefei Xinqiao International Airport offer wider connections with onward bus service. High-speed rail to Chizhou Station, then bus to the mountain entrance, approximately one hour. Admission fee for the scenic area is approximately 160 CNY. Shuttle buses run from the entrance to Jiuhua Street. A cable car to the Tiantai area is available for a fee. Accommodation ranges from temple guesthouses to hotels in Jiuhua Street. Mobile phone signal is available in the village and at major temples; it may be unreliable on remote trails. No information on emergency services was available at time of writing; check with the scenic area management for current details.
Jiuhua Street offers a range of accommodation from temple guesthouses, where conditions are basic but the atmosphere is immersive, to hotels at various price points. Restaurants throughout the village serve vegetarian food exclusively. The mountain's temple cuisine is famous across China.
Jiuhua Shan is an active Buddhist pilgrimage site where temple etiquette should be observed throughout. The mountain is entirely vegetarian. Photography is restricted inside halls housing the incorrupt bodies.
The etiquette of Jiuhua Shan reflects the mountain's function as a place of active worship rather than a heritage site. Every temple is a functioning religious space. Visitors are welcome but are expected to move with awareness of the devotional activity around them.
The mountain's vegetarian rule is absolute. No meat, fish, or alcohol is sold anywhere on the mountain. This is not a dietary suggestion but a precept observed by the entire community. All restaurants and guesthouses on the mountain serve only vegetarian food.
In temple halls, speak quietly or not at all. Remove hats. Do not step on door thresholds — step over them. When entering a temple, use the side doors; the center door is traditionally reserved for the abbot. If you encounter pilgrims performing prostrations on the mountain paths, do not step over them or crowd them. Give space and move past respectfully.
When observing worship, maintain a posture of respect even if you are not participating. Do not photograph people in prayer without their consent, particularly those who are visibly grieving.
Modest clothing appropriate for temple visits. Many pilgrims wear yellow or brown Buddhist robes or sashes, but visitors in ordinary clothes are welcome. Comfortable walking shoes are essential for mountain paths. Layers are advisable for temperature changes between valley and summit.
Photography is generally restricted inside halls housing the incorrupt bodies — follow posted signs and the guidance of temple staff. Exterior photography is freely permitted. Be sensitive when photographing people in prayer, particularly those who are visibly grieving.
Incense is the primary offering and is available from vendors throughout the mountain. Three sticks is standard. Paper money and other ritual goods for the dead are also available. Place offerings only in designated areas and burners. Some pilgrims bring flowers, fruit, and food as offerings.
Do not touch the incorruptible bodies or their shrine casings. Do not step on door thresholds. The entire mountain observes a vegetarian rule — no meat, fish, or alcohol. Do not interfere with pilgrims performing prostrations. Speak quietly in worship areas.
Nearby sacred places
Sacred places within a half-day’s reach. Pilgrims often visit them together: walk one, stay for the other.
