Qinglong Temple

Qinglong Temple stands on Leyouyuan hill in the south-eastern part of Xi'an and is known as the place where the Japanese monk Kukai, founder of the Shingon school, studied at the start of the ninth century. The house arose under the Sui dynasty, became one of the centres of tantric Buddhism under the Tang, and had fallen into decay by the Song era. Archaeologists found the foundations in the 1960s, after which a memorial hall was built with money from Japanese Buddhists and a garden laid out. In the courtyard stands a bronze group in which the master Huiguo passes the teaching to Kukai. In spring the grounds fill with flowering cherries planted by Japanese twin towns.

On the map