Nanfa Ruyu – Stacked Rock Temple

Anyone who has watched the TV drama A Dream of Red Mansions will surely remember the meteorite stone featured in the opening credits, inscribed with the line: “Unfit to mend the azure vault, I drift and waste my years amid mortal dust.” Today, visitors to Nan’ao can behold a rock formation that evokes the very image of that “immortal stone beneath Green Ridge Peak.”

Travel roughly two kilometres west from Xiongzhen Pass, which stands in the central eastern half of Nan’ao Island, and you will reach the Ma’an Mountain slope on the eastern flank of Guolao Mountain. As you gaze across the rolling hills, the first sight to catch your eye is a massive boulder perched on the western hillside, as if it had descended from the heavens. Resting securely atop another colossal outcrop that juts skyward, this formation is the famed Stacked Rock Wonder of Nan’ao Island. It instantly brings to mind the legend of the magical stone left behind beneath Green Ridge Peak after the Goddess Nüwa melted stones to repair the broken sky.

Nearly one hundred metres down the slope below the stacked rocks lies the renowned Stacked Rock Temple, famous both at home and abroad. The temple was founded by the eminent monk Shi Renzhi, a native of Laoyuan Village in Yun’ao, Nan’ao Island.

In the late Daoguang reign of the Qing Dynasty, seeking a secluded retreat for spiritual cultivation, Monk Shi Renzhi left the Buddhist temple at Xiongzhen Pass and chanced upon this spot. He was captivated by the jagged grotesque rocks surrounding a clear, ethereal spring. To the south stretched the seascape of Yun’ao: vast misty waters dotted with sailing vessels shimmering under sunlight. On the northern hillside stood a spacious natural stone cave, cool and refreshing, with a clear spring trickling through rock fissures—a veritable blessed haven.

Overjoyed by this discovery, Monk Renzhi summoned extraordinary perseverance to carve chambers into the rock: one served as a meditation hall, the other as his living quarters. On the cave’s inner rock wall, he personally chiselled a regular script character “Blessing (Fu)” nearly two metres tall. Above the entrance lintel outside the meditation hall, the three characters “Stacked Rock Temple” were carved into the stone.

Shi Renzhi was revered for his profound spiritual attainment and thorough mastery of Buddhist scriptures. In his youth, he travelled extensively to study under masters elsewhere and was later appointed abbot of Xianqin Temple in Yixing County, Jiangsu Province. The venerable grand master Xu Yun once journeyed here out of admiration to pay homage and seek spiritual guidance. After Shi Renzhi settled back at Stacked Rock Temple, streams of pilgrims flocked to visit him. In the years that followed, countless disciples attained spiritual enlightenment under his teaching, nurturing a line of distinguished monastic successors, and the temple gradually expanded its scale. Two major renovation and expansion projects took place in 1990 and 1992, spearheaded and overseen by Shi Dinggen, a descendant of the temple’s founding monk and former president of the Shantou Buddhist Association.

Well advanced in years yet undeterred by his frail physique, Shi Dinggen dedicated himself to reviving the ancestral temple. He coordinated fund-raising efforts to pool modest donations into sufficient resources. The 1990 renovation refurbished the original compound and added the Prajna Hall, monk quarters and an outer courtyard. Zhao Puchu, Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and President of the Buddhist Association of China, personally inscribed the horizontal plaque bearing the temple’s name “Stacked Rock Temple” for the main gate. Shi Dingchi, another monastic descendant, composed a couplet carved beside the entrance: Layered peaks wrapped in deep spring mist, only white clouds linger beside golden cliffs;

Slippery stone mountain paths let red maple leaves drift onto green crags.

In 1992, Shi Dinggen embarked on a second large-scale expansion. Terraced stone platforms were built along the ravine, a grand main Buddha hall erected, and guardian vajra statues installed, seamlessly integrating new constructions with the ancient rock chambers. Three white marble Buddha statues occupy the centre of the Mahavira Hall: the Sakyamuni Buddha stands approximately 1.7 metres tall on a white marble lotus throne measuring 1.08 metres high, while the two flanking Bodhisattvas each reach a total height of 2.5 metres including their pedestals. A standing white marble Guanyin statue over two metres high resides in the Guanyin Pavilion. The Fu Character Hall enshrines a seated white marble statue of Monk Renzhi for visitors to pay respects. A clear spring gurgles from the adjacent rock wall, named the Spring of Wisdom.

Following the expansions, Stacked Rock Temple is also known as the Stacked Rock White Marble Buddha Temple. Its Buddhist lineage and spiritual tradition have spread to monastic communities across China and overseas, all of which regard Stacked Rock Temple as their ancestral origin temple. The four characters “Southern Heavenly Source of Dharma” were inscribed and carved onto the giant rock in 1944 by Chen Guanglie, a Chaoshan scholar and chief compiler of the Records of Nan’ao County, encapsulating the identity of this unique Buddhist school.

As you step out of the temple gate and prepare to descend the stone steps, a more than ten-metre tall Buddhist pagoda suddenly rises into view on the small slope to the left—the Thousand Buddha Pagoda. It takes its name from the thousands of stone Buddha figures carved across its exterior walls, with a colossal Buddha statue housed inside the pagoda’s central chamber. A recent landmark addition to the temple compound, it stands in harmonious visual dialogue with the Stacked Rock Wonder on the western ridge, where a two-metre-wide character “Buddha (Fo)” is chiselled into the stone, forming a brand-new scenic highlight of Nanfa Ruyu Stacked Rock Temple.