Niushoushan

Niushoushan (Chinese: 牛首山) is a cultural park at a historical Buddhist mountain site on the southern outskirts of Nanjing, China, centred on the Ox Head Mountain.

Niushoushan
牛首山
Inside the Great Usnisa Hall at Niushoushan
Type	Buddhist cultural park
Location	Dongshanqiao Town, Jiangning District, China
Nearest city	Nanjing
Coordinates	31.91322°N 118.74507°E / 31.91322; 118.74507
Area	80 ha (Phase One: 17.5 ha)
Opened	2014
Operated by	Nanjing Niushoushan Culture Tourism Development
Visitors	5 million (3 years after opening)
Status	Open
Budget	4 billion RMB
Website	eng.niushoushan.net

The park is newly developed and opened as a tourist attraction in 2014,[1] but the location has been a Buddhist site since the Tang dynasty (618–907AD).[2] However, the original temple was destroyed in the 1850s during the Taiping Rebellion.

Niushoushan, or Niushou Mountain (aka the "Ox Head Mountain" because the east and west peaks form the shape of two horns of an ox), has a height of 243 m.[3]

The park includes the Foding Palace (aka the Usnisa Palace[4]), covering an area of 136,000 m² (220 meters long, 160 meters wide, and 89.3 meters high), most of it underground, up to six floors down.[2] Construction started in 2012.[5] At the ground level is a large hall containing a slowly rotating 7.5-meter reclining Buddha in jade. Below ground level, escalators give access to the Ten Thousand-Buddha Corridor, leading to the large Great Usnisa Hall.[6]

Since 2015, the palace has been the shrine for the world's only parietal relic of Buddha (the skull of Shakyamuni), making Niushoushan a sacred location for Buddhists.[3] The relic was found in the Ashoka Pagoda in the underground palace of the Bao'en Temple (the former Changgan Temple of the Song dynasty) in Qinhuai District, Nanjing.

The external space of the palace is in three parts: a large dome, a small dome, and Buddha grottoes.[3] The large dome is 120 meters long, shaped like a Buddha's cassock, and partially covers the small dome. The small dome's base is in the shape of a lotus throne and is composed of 56 flying Bodhi gates together with 56 cloud gates.

Outside and nearby is the 88-meter tall, nine-storey, and four-sided Foding Pagoda, newly built in the style of the Tang dynasty.[3]

There is also a smaller c.40-meter tall, seven-storey, and eight-sided Hongjue Pagoda.[7] The pagoda was first built in 774AD during the time of Dali and the Tang dynasty. The pagoda was rebuilt during the early Ming dynasty.

Other attractions include the Zheng He Culture Park, with the grave of the Ming dynasty navigator Zheng He,[4][8] and further developments are planned.