Holy Spring Mountain Buddhism Guanyin Temple
Brief Introduction

   The Buddhism Guanyin Temple of Holy Spring Mountain Scenic spot was located at Koutou, Huairou District; it’s 6 km away from Huairou Town. It was between Hongluo Temple and Mutianyu Great wall. It’s 3 km from Hongluo Temple to the east and 10 km from the Great wall to the west. It’s close to Huaisha Road, very convenient for viewers.

    The magnificent Scenic spot was on the backside of Mount Yanshan and surrounded by Huaisha River. It’s really a land of glories. It covers an area of 5 square kilometers. There’s a mountain named Jiulong Mountain inside the spot, meaning that it was formed by 9 dragons. The front peak was called Maitreya Top that is 388 meters high and all covered with lofty and beautiful trees. From the foot of mountain to Dhyana Awaken the Spring Dawn, there’s 288 meters head drop. The gradient of the slope step was 25 degree, which is very suitable for climbing exercising. To the north of front peak, there were a forest of peaks, and among these peaks were scattered lots of valley. Buddhism Guanyin Top, the back peak, was 393 meters, looks like comely Buddhism Guanyin. In front of it, there’s a natural valley. In the middle part of the valley, among pines and cypress, there’s Holy Spring Buddhism Guanyin Temple that was built in Tang Dynasty by an eminent monk. The average height of the place between Dhyana Awaken the Spring Dawn and Buddhism Guanyin Temple was 320 meters. The average gradient of the slope step was 1.3 degree. The green pine and cypress spread on both sides of the path. It can give the tourists a comfortable feeling when they get far away from the city noise, breathe the fresh air, and listen to the songs of birds. You can go for a walk inside for relaxing, especially in the summer season.  

    Around the core Scenic spot, Holy Spring Buddhism Guanyin Temple, there were a lot of humane and natural scenes. For humane scenes, there were lots of doubts and suspicions that we cannot resolve yet. Since ancient time, innumerable tourists tried to fathom them out. Through the ages, these legends have acquired an element of mystery and wonder among the people. Holy Spring Buddhism Guanyin Temple became famous and people from everywhere all came here to view, to research and to pray. All visitors got what is valuable for them when they left. From then on, Holy Spring Buddhism Guanyin Temple was very lively and attracted a large number of pilgrims, though it’s not so near from the town.

    “If there’s celestial being in a mountain, this mountain must be very famous. If there’s dragon in a river, this river must be very efficacious.” Now, Holy Spring Buddhism Guanyin Temple gets a good change. The golden statues of Buddhism Guanyin reappear and the Holy Spring gust out again. We open our gate to welcome you to climb Holy Spring Mountain, to visit Holy Spring Buddhism Guanyin Temple. You can get something good for you body and soul that is worth cherishing through lifetime.

    Holy Spring Buddhism Guanyin Temple was located in the valley that is to the east of back peak, Maitreya Top. It’s a standard two levels Siheyuanr. The front part is the gate of temple, there stand three gates to the south hill though it’s not too big. There’s only 1 Zhang(3 meters) corridor from the middle gate to the main hall. The main hall was called “Weituo Palace”. Maitreya was in it. Through the back door of “Weituo Palace”, we will arrive main compound. The main hall of Temple stands in the north of compound, there were three Buddhist, in the center, Sakyamuni is the central figure, Munjusri and Samantabhadra were to the east and west of Sakyamuni. There were each three side halls on east and west part of the compound. The east side hall was for Nanhai Guanyin, the west side hall was for Ruyilun Guanyin. The compound was not too big, but very exquisite. The building was carved beams and painted rafters. Beside the main hall gate, there’s one stone tablet on each side, the left one is the Merits tablet of Chenghua Period, Ming Dynasty. The right one is the Merits tablet of Jiaqing Period, Qing Dynasty. The well in front of the right tablet was just the one that Weituo carried here. The smooth stone on the mouth of the well and the well pulley beside the well were both old items.

    Holy Spring Buddhism Guanyin Temple was founded in Tang Dynasty. It has a history of over 1,000 years. But now we cannot get the exact record that mentioned its history. According to legend, Fan Lihua, one of the famous female generals, guarded Youzhou. One time, when she was fighting with North Country, was entrenched in Jiulong Mountain (at that time Holy Spring Mountain was still called Jiulong Mountain), the enemy was much more stronger than her troop. When she would be killed by the enemy, she put her palms together and cry to sky, “Buddhism Guanyin, Buddhism Guanyin help me.” Buddhism Guanyin heard her voice, ask those nine dragons to help Fan Lihua. These nine dragons follow Buddhism Guanyin’s order and make the cloud and rain on the top of the enemy troop. Nobody could open his eyes in the rain. In this way, Fan Lihua managed to run away successfully together with her trusted aids. After that, in order to thank to Buddhism Guanyin, Fan Lihua set up one temple and made statue for later generations to respect Buddhism Guanyin.

    So many years passed, now the building of Tang Dynasty has already disappeared, but there’s still two roots of old scholar tree we can see at the front of main hall of Guanyin Temple and the south-east corner of Weituo Palace. it should be relics of Tang Dynasty for their diameters were over than 1.5 meters,. After Tang Dynasty, in Jin, Yuan Dynasty, People moved from time to time because of the bad public order. A lot of legends of Holy Spring were neglected because of vicissitude.

    During Zhengtong Period, Ming Dynasty, Peking eminent monk Bitian passed by, he visited the temple and found it really a good place for resting and cultivating morality. Then he decided to try to repair Holy Spring Buddhism Guanyin Temple. After several years collecting alms, in Chenghua Period, Ming Dynasty, Holy Spring Buddhism Guanyin Temple was repaired well by the disciple of “Bitian”, “Chengguang”.

    From Ming Dynasty, Beijing was the capital, Many people moved to Beijing from other parts of the country. The population of Beijing was increasing and people’s life was relatively stable. To the south of Huaisha River and front of Holy Spring Mountain, a big village came into being. Because this village was located at the mouth of valley where Mutianyu Great Wall located, so it’s called “Koutou”.

    In Jiaqing Period, Qing Dynasty, without repairing so long time, Buddhism Guanyin Temple’s condition was getting worse. The monks who live in the temple turned to the country gentlemen, thus the temple was repaired well with funds pooled by these gentlemen.

    Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the monks of this temple left one by one. In 1958, the last monk was dead. From then on, all ?rooms of the temple were empty. But the villagers of Koutou always protected the temple. Even in the period of 10-year turmoil, there still came lots of people burning joss sticks in Holy Spring Mountain.

    In 2003, what we called predestined relationship brought it back to life again repairing project was restarted. Now we can see the splendid halls of temple are splendid and all statues are shining. More and more people come here to pray to the kindly Buddhism Guanyin. This time, the rejuvenation of Holy Spring Mountain will thrive forever.