Wangji Temple

Wangji Temple hides in the lanes of Dongguan, the eastern suburb of Xi'an beyond the city wall. The house was founded in 705 by Princess Taiping in memory of her mother, the empress Wu Zetian, and named after a line from the Book of Songs saying that a mother's kindness cannot be repaid. The monastery burned and was rebuilt several times under the Ming and the Qing, so the present gate with its stone lions and the halls behind it belong to the later reconstructions. Today this is a working Buddhist nunnery, one of the oldest in the city. Visitors hardly ever come here, and in the courtyards nothing is heard but the reading of sutras.

On the map