Discover Chengdu
Wenshu Monastery
文殊院
Chengdu's best-preserved working Buddhist temple, a Tang foundation rebuilt in the Qing, where monks chant daily among incense smoke and ancient ginkgos. The attached vegetarian canteen and the teahouse in the back courtyard are institutions in their own right.
The story
What makes this place special
A temple has stood here since the Sui dynasty, founded in the Daye period between 605 and 617 and originally called Xinxiang Temple; it was destroyed in the fighting at the end of the Ming. The Chan monk Cidu rebuilt it late in the seventeenth century - sources give dates between 1681 and 1697 - and the present name comes from a story that when he was cremated the flames formed an image of Manjusri (Wenshu), the bodhisattva of wisdom, in the air, so people concluded he had been Manjusri incarnate. The Kangxi emperor wrote the characters Kong Lin, 'empty forest', for the temple around 1701 to 1702 and sealed them with his imperial stamp, which is why it is also called Kong Lin Tang. Its treasures include a fragment of skull venerated as the Tang pilgrim Xuanzang's, Indian palm-leaf sutras and a gilt Tang sutra case from Japan, most of which are too precious to be on general display. It is one of the state-designated key Han Buddhist temples and remains a working monastery rather than a museum.
What you’ll discover
A sequence of main halls on a north-south axis behind a screen wall, in grey brick and dark timber with upswept Sichuanese roofs, thick with incense smoke and with people actually praying - this is the one major site in central Chengdu that is primarily a place of worship and only secondarily a sight. The Kangxi 'empty forest' inscription, stele galleries and the relic halls are off the axis in side courtyards. At the back are the monastery's tea house and its vegetarian restaurant, the Xiangzhai Tang, both heavily used by local people.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- Eat here. The monastery's vegetarian restaurant, Xiangzhai Tang, is one of the best-value meals in central Chengdu and is a genuine institution - go at lunchtime, queue with everyone else, and expect mock-meat dishes done properly rather than a tourist menu.
- Then sit in the tea garden. It is cheap, shaded, full of elderly locals and a great deal calmer than the Heming Teahouse in People's Park, and almost no foreign visitors find it.
- Come on the first or fifteenth day of the lunar month if you want to see it at full tilt - those are the main worship days and the courtyards are packed with devotees, which is a very different experience from a quiet Tuesday.
- Free incense is given out inside; you do not need to buy anything from the shops on the approach street.
- The surrounding Wenshufang streets are a restored old-lane shopping district with snack stalls, and the metro station is at the gate, which makes this one of the easiest sights in Chengdu to slot into half a morning.
When to come
Morning, when the monks' services are on and the halls are in use. The first and fifteenth of the lunar month for the atmosphere; any season, as the site is shaded and partly covered.
Getting around
Fairly good. The monastery is flat, laid out as a series of courtyards on one level with broad paved surfaces, and the tea garden and canteen are at ground level. The obstacles are the raised stone thresholds and the two or three steps up into each hall, and the crowds and incense braziers on busy worship days. A wheelchair user can get round the courtyards and into the tea garden with help at thresholds; a bad knee is no problem at all.
Worth knowing before you go
You get one free stick of incense at the gate. Eat at the temple's vegetarian restaurant - a full tray costs a fraction of the restaurants outside - then sit in the rear courtyard teahouse, which is far quieter than People's Park.
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