Travel Notes Longhua Temple: The Oldest Buddhist Temple in Shanghai, With Its Pagoda Still Standing Where It Always Was
The oldest temple in Shanghai
Longhua Temple stands at 2853 Longhua Road in Xuhui and goes by the name first ancient temple of Shanghai. Its founding is put in the Chiwu era of the Three Kingdoms, around 247 CE, though documented history reaches back to the Tang. The site covers about 28,000 square metres.
The pagoda is better known than the halls
The Longhua Pagoda is a national protected monument, eight-sided and seven storeys, visible from outside the gate. The main buildings run along one axis from south to north: the Maitreya Hall, the Hall of Heavenly Kings, the Hall of Mahavira, the Hall of the Three Saints, the abbot quarters and the scripture library. Walking the line slowly is enough.
A Tang reality behind a Three Kingdoms legend
The most widely repeated story says that the ruler Sun Quan, honouring his mother, had Buddha relics brought from the west and built both pagoda and temple. It carries the smell of legend and lacks contemporary evidence, but the temple as one of the oldest in the city can at least be traced to the Tang. In 977 the Wuyue king Qian Hongchu rebuilt the pagoda, and the basic plan that followed comes from then.
The fair and the evening bell
The New Year fair here is a national intangible heritage item, and the bell rung around midnight on New Year Eve is something Shanghai families have heard for more than a century. During the fair the ground in front and behind the temple fills up: incense, sugar painting, pingtan storytelling and ordinary noise packed together, the most smoky and lively stretch of old Shanghai.
Trees, blossom and one axis
The quietest part is the courtyards. Peonies and peaches open in the court before the main hall at the end of spring, summer camphor covers the whole covered walk, and in autumn the leaves lie across the steps. Two ancient trees in front of the scripture library take several arms to encircle, and standing there listening to the bell explains the word ancient better than kneeling in a hall.
Two hours is just right
It is five minutes on foot from Longhua station on lines 11 or 12, and it fits the middle of a half day: do other places in the morning, come before five, and walk the axis in quiet before closing. Entry is free, and donations are welcome.
Longhua is not big; two hours is ample. What slows people down is not the incense inside the halls but the moment you step out of the main hall and see the pagoda tip appear above the plane tree canopy. Shanghai has not left many old things behind, and this pagoda is one that is still in use.
Practical information
- Hours: 8:00-16:30, worth confirming again before you travel.
- Tickets: free.
- Getting there: metro lines 11 or 12 to Longhua station, exit 2, five minutes on foot; buses 41, 44, 166 stop at Longhua Temple.
- How to walk: the main buildings lie along one axis and are seen on foot, no need to rush; during the fair it is crowded, so go in the morning.
- Nearby: Xujhui is two kilometres north, the riverside at Longhua to the east, easy to continue along the water.
Related reading
Dule Temple: The Liao-era Guanyin Pavilion Liang Sicheng Called a Priceless Treasure
Dule Temple, also the Great Buddha Temple, stands in Jizhou, Tianjin, among the oldest surviving wooden high-rise pavilions in China and one of its three great Liao-dynasty monasteries. Its heart, the Guanyin Pavilion, rises 23 metres and shelters a eleven-faced clay Guanyin 16 metres tall — the largest ancient clay Guanyin image extant. The architect Liang Sicheng called it a priceless treasure.
Jin Mao Tower: A 420.5-Metre Pagoda with Thirteen Tapering Stages
Jin Mao Tower stands in Lujiazui in Pudong. At 420.5 metres and eighty-eight storeys, it was the tallest building in mainland China when it finished in 1999 and remains one of the most recognisable high-rises in Shanghai. Adrian Smith of the American firm SOM led the design; the facade narrows in thirteen stages into a pagoda shape, a phrase about climbing step by step. The eighty-eighth floor observation deck sits at 340 metres over about 1,520 square metres, one of the earliest high-level viewing platforms in the city.
Shanghai Science and Technology Museum: a science classroom on Century Avenue
At 2000 Century Avenue in Pudong, this museum covers 68,000 square metres and opened in December 2001 with the theme of nature, people and technology. Thirteen permanent galleries and two cinemas make it the city's most popular science venue for families, and an adult ticket costs forty-five yuan.
Shanghai Haichang Ocean Park: the sea at Lingang
On the shore of Dishui Lake in Lingang, Pudong, this park opened in November 2018 across 29.7 hectares. Five themed zones and six animal halls include an orca theatre and the world's first Ultraman pavilion, making it the largest ocean park in East China.
Yu Garden: A Private Garden of Four Centuries Ago, Tucked Behind Nanjing Road
Yu Garden sits in the north-east of the old town in Huangpu. It began in 1559, when Pan Yunduan, a provincial treasurer of Sichuan, built it to keep his father comfortable, hence the name meaning joy for the elders. The original covered under thirty mu; today, with the Inner Garden, it is about 1.8 hectares, the only fully surviving Ming garden in Shanghai and a national protected monument since 1982. The great rockery of Taihu stone at the entrance is Ming original, and outside the gate lie the nine-turning bridge and the noise of the City God Temple.