Discover Nanjing
Jiming Temple
鸡鸣寺
A small hillside nunnery founded in the 6th century, pressed right up against the Ming city wall and Xuanwu Lake. Nanjing's most famous cherry-blossom street runs along its approach road.
The story
What makes this place special
The hill here, variously called Jilong, Beijige and Jiming, carried the Tongtai Temple built by Emperor Wu of Liang in the sixth century — 'the first temple of the Southern Dynasties', where the emperor four times staged his own symbolic renunciation of the throne, and the clearest surviving case of how closely imperial power and Buddhism were bound together in the Southern capital. Chen Shubao, the last Chen emperor, is said to have hidden in a well here when the dynasty fell. The Hongwu Emperor rebuilt the temple on the Tongtai site in 1387 and gave it the name Jiming. It was badly damaged in the late Qing and repaired in the twentieth century, and since 1958 it has been a working nunnery.
What you’ll discover
A compact temple climbing a small hill, entered from Jiming Temple Road, with halls stacked up the slope and the Yaoshi Buddha pagoda at the top — a tower so convincing as an old pagoda that a television production borrowed it to stand in for Hangzhou's Leifeng Pagoda when that one no longer existed. It is a functioning nunnery with nuns, incense and worshippers rather than a monument. From the upper terraces you look over Xuanwu Lake and along the Ming city wall. In spring the approach road is a tunnel of cherry blossom and is one of the busiest few hundred metres in the city.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- The walk is the real attraction and nobody tells you about it: go in at the bottom of Jiming Temple Road, up through the temple, out at the top near Jiefangmen, then along the top of the Ming wall above Xuanwu Lake. It is the best hour in Nanjing.
- Cherry blossom here lasts about ten days in late March or early April and during it the road is shoulder to shoulder from dawn. If you want the blossom, be there before seven.
- Buy the vegetarian noodles at the temple's own counter. It is a nunnery kitchen, it is cheap, and it is better than anything near Xuanwu Lake.
- The entry arrangement conventionally includes incense sticks; if you do not intend to offer them, hand them back rather than leaving them.
- Out of blossom season it is quiet on a weekday morning, which is when the terrace view over the lake and the wall is worth having.
When to come
Early morning. Late March to early April for the cherry blossom, if you accept the crowd; otherwise autumn, when the lake and wall view is clearest.
Getting around
Hard. The temple is built up a hillside and movement between halls is by flights of stone steps, with more steps inside the pagoda and no lifts. The lowest courtyard is reachable from the road; everything above it is not. A wheelchair user will see the entrance level only. A bad knee can manage slowly with handrails, but the pagoda climb and the exit up to the city wall are both substantial.
Worth knowing before you go
In late March the blossom road outside is shoulder-to-shoulder from 08:00 - come on a weekday or skip to the wall above instead.
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