Stone Buddha Temple

Stone Buddha Temple is in Sheep Mountain, in the north of Shaoxing City, about 30 km away from the downtown. Sheep Mountain is named so because in the mountain there is a stone shaped like a sheep. According to ancient records, in Sui Dynasty, a duke named Yang Gongsu ordered labors to quarry rocks in the mountain to construct a fortification. And adter the quarrying, half the mountain was cut away. There only left a high and steep solitary rock. The later generations excavated a huge cave on the top of the rock and sculpted a stone Buddha in the cave. It is said that on the day when the Buddha was finished, people saw a golden eagle hovering over the rock. It was taken as an auspicious omen and people built a Buddhist temple against the rock to enshrine and worship the stone Buddha. Later in the period of Hou Jin of Five Dynasties, the temple was officially renamed Stone Buddha Temple. Ever since then, the temple has been popular among the Buddhists.

The temple consists of three halls, Tianwang Hall, Daxiongbao Hall, and the third hall. In 1989, it was restored partially. On the rocks around the stone Buddha, there are many age-old inscriptions and most of them are recognizable. They were written by the ancients who visited the temple. The temple was acknowledged as a key historical site under county-level protect in 1961.