Discover Xiamen
Nanputuo Temple
南普陀寺
A thousand-year-old Buddhist complex climbing the hillside below Wulao Peak, backed by rocks carved with giant characters and fronted by lotus ponds. Working monastery with a renowned vegetarian restaurant.
The story
What makes this place special
Nanputuo was founded as a Buddhist temple in the last years of the Tang, dismantled in the Yuan and restored as a Buddhist temple in the Ming. In 1684, early in the Qing, General Shi Lang paid for it to be rebuilt and enlarged, added a hall for Guanyin, and named it after Mount Putuo in Zhejiang — 'southern Putuo'. In 1924 Master Huiquan became its first abbot in the modern sense, and in 1925 he founded the Minnan Buddhist College here, where the scholar-monks Hongyi and Yinshun taught; the college is still one of the most important Buddhist seminaries in China, which is why the temple is full of young monks rather than only visitors.
What you’ll discover
A working temple climbing the slope at the foot of the Wulao peaks, directly beside Xiamen University. You enter past a lotus pond and the Heavenly Kings Hall, then up through the main halls on successive terraces, with the Guanyin hall and the Great Buddha hall above, and the monks' college buildings to the side. Behind and above, paths lead up the Wulao hillside past rock inscriptions to viewpoints over Xiamen, Haicang, Gulangyu and across to Zhangzhou. The temple's vegetarian restaurant is one of the better-known in southern China.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- Keep climbing past the last hall and up the Wulao hillside. The path above the temple has the rock carvings and the best free view in Xiamen, and the overwhelming majority of visitors stop at the main halls.
- Eat at the temple's vegetarian restaurant rather than in the streets outside. It is inexpensive, it is the real thing, and it fills up at noon — go at 11:30.
- This is a seminary, not a monument. Services run through the day, the monks are students, and photographing people at prayer is not welcome; the halls are no-photography inside.
- It shares a wall with Xiamen University's Siming campus, so the temple, the campus and Hulishan Fortress make one coherent day along the south shore.
- Go early. It opens early for worship, and the first hours are when it is a temple rather than a sight.
When to come
Early morning, year round. Autumn and winter for the hillside climb; summer afternoons on the terraces are very hot and the incense makes it hotter.
Getting around
Limited. The temple is built in terraces up a slope, with flights of stone steps between every level and raised thresholds at the hall doors. The lowest courtyard, the lotus pond and the first hall are reachable at near-ground level, so a wheelchair user can get into the temple but not up through it. The Wulao hillside paths above are steep, stepped and unpaved in places. A bad knee can manage the main halls slowly and should not attempt the hill.
Worth knowing before you go
Climb the steps behind the main halls onto Wulao Peak - 20 minutes up and the best free view over the university and the strait.
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