When people think of popular poems on the sceneries of the West Lake, one that invariably springs to mind is A Springtime Walk by the Qiantang Lake or Qiantang Hu Chunxing, by the Tang (618-907) poet Bai Juyi (772-846). As the governor of Hangzhou, it is little surprise that Bai wrote extensively on the city and the West Lake, alternatively known as the Qiantang Lake. 

“North of the Gushan Temple and west of the Jia Pavilion,” the first line of the poem goes. While most in China are able to recite it and the entire poem, few perhaps have dug deeper and gone a step further: exactly where is the Gushan Temple? 

The Solitary Hill (Photo/ Sima Yimin)

As its name and the poem suggest, the temple is supposed to be on Gushan or the Solitary Hill. However, it is now nowhere to be found around the hill. So where is it? Or more precisely where was it?

References to Gushan Temple abound in historical records and poems. Apart from A Springtime Walk by the Qiantang Lake, Bai Juyi also composed two other poems about the temple. In On the Gushan Temple in Hangzhou, Zhang Hu (785-849), a contemporary of Bai, reminisced about the place after his travels there:

Above the green ridge, a pavilion rises, and to the heart of the lake a path winds.

Without rain, the hill’s moisture stays, and without clouds the water’s cool remains.

On the Broken Bridge mosses scatter, and in the empty courtyard fallen flowers gather.

Still, remember the bright moon by the western window and the bells in the northern forest below.

Zhang’s poem indicates there were a number of temples on the hill and Gushan Temple was only one of them, whose monks were in close contact with poets and literary figures like Bai and Zhang, as Xu Hun (791-858), another poet at the time, wrote, “Bidding adieu to the tavern at daybreak after drinking all night, the moon is already set as I return to the temple.” Apparently, Xu had been put up at the Gushan Temple for some time. 

About two centuries later, in the Song dynasty (960-1279), the Gushan Temple was still one of the favorite places that literati frequented. Indeed, the names of Bai Juyi and Zhang Hu were mentioned as well now and then in their writings. Lin Bu (967-1028), that great Song hermit who had been single all his life and had famously taken plum trees as his wives and cranes as his sons, spoke glowingly of them in his poem Gushan Temple: “Honorable Bai’s bedchamber is as serene as a painting, and Zhang Hu’s verses are as ingenious as they are enthralling.” 

In fact, the Song poets and scholars were in close touch with the monks of the Gushan Temple, too. “Thoughts fly high and above as I lean upon a balcony looking far, in a western chamber behind the tower on the Solitary Hill,” in another poem, Lin wrote of his looking into the distance in a monk’s room at the temple.

Then there was Su Shi (1037-1101), aka Su Dongpo, whom it would be a great remiss not to mention. In the year 1071, Su was exiled and took up the post of assistant prefect of Hangzhou as he was embroiled in factional fights in the imperial court. 

In the 12th lunar month of the same year, Su penned a poem after visiting two monks on the Solitary Hill. In Traveling to the Solitary Hill and Visiting the Two Monks Huiqin and Huisi on Laba Festival, he described: 

The sky portends snow, as clouds drape over the lake.

Pavilions and towers light up and dim down, as hills emerge and submerge. 

Rocks surface from clear waters that fish can be counted.

Deep in the forest no one but birds echo on another. 

On the Laba Festival, to be with my family I am not. 

I say I’m seeking out men of the Way but it’s more to have some fun. 

These men of the Way, where are their abodes?

A winding path at the foot of the Precious Cloud hill points to the way.

The Solitary Hill is such a lonely place that who’d lodge here?

But men of the Way, having the Way, make the hill not so lonely. 

Paper rooms and bamboo rooms keep them warm,

In coarse clothes, they sit and sleep on futons. 

It is cold and the road long, worrying my servant.

He readies my coach and urges me to return home before dusk.

Leaving the hill, I look back at where the trees meet the clouds,

All I see are wild falcons circling the pagoda.

It’s been a simple journey but gives much joy.

Coming home, I’m all dazed as if in a trance.

Quickly I write down this poem before the images escape my mind,

For a pure scene, once lost, will be hard to recapture.

Although it was the first time that he had visited the Gushan Temple, Su Shi evidently took an immediate liking to the place, either because of the scenery or his pleasant talks with the two monks. 

While historical records and literary references such as the above poems clearly show that the Gushan Temple had already been there during the mid-Tang and flourished well into the Song dynasty, it remains unclear when exactly the temple fell.