Mingyan Ancient Temple

Mingyan is located in the mountains on the northeast back of ‘Han Yan Cave Heaven’. It has long been famous for its ‘three victories’: First, ‘Five Horses Hidden’; second, ‘Mantis Fishing for Toad’; third, ‘Monk Carrying Taoist’. If you look at Mingyan carefully, there are at least forty or fifty scenic spots. On the east side of its valley entrance, there is ‘Lion Mountain’ on the left and ‘Elephant Mountain’ on the right. Not far from the valley entrance, there are Yellow Dog Lying on the Ground, Bell and Drum Rock, Eight-Inch Pass, Harmony Stone, and Three-Eyed Spring (also known as Tonghai Pool). At the north end of Three-Eyed Spring, there are cliff inscriptions such as ‘Strange Rocks and Bright Caves’ and small stone beams. On the cliff on the north side of Mingyan, there are Chulai Cave, Chaoyang Cave, and Tiger Cave. In Chulai Cave, there is a natural rock picture of foxes fighting cocks on Meiyan. Inside the cave, there is ‘The Shadow of Patriarch Bodhidharma Coming from the West’, which is the former site of the Baolun Poetry Society of Qi Zhaonan, a local virtuous person in the Qing Dynasty. Chaoyang Cave has now been expanded into Chaoyang Nunnery, which is very quiet and refreshing. In the middle section of Mingyan, there is ‘Tangerine Cave’ on the peak. Under the peak, there is a large rock picture of ‘White Horse Ascending to the Western Heaven’. At the bottom of the mountain is the cave hall in modern times where the shrine of Han Shanzi is located. Near the south mountain in the middle section, in addition to ‘Five Horses Shadow’, there is also ‘Blue Sky with White Rain’. On the top of the mountain, there is a flying waterfall called ‘Mingyan Waterfall’, which can only be seen in spring rain or thunderstorm seasons. The western section is the deeper and more secluded cave heaven of Mingyan. Inside it, there are many scenic spots such as ‘Stone Hall Alley’, ‘Praying Hands Rock’, ‘One Slice of Sky’, ‘Carp Ascending the Mountain’, ‘Crucian Carp Ascending the Mountain’, etc.

[Five Horses Hidden] On the rock wall on the south side of the ‘Commemorative Tower for Han Shan and Shi De, the Two Great Monks’ in Mingyan. This rock wall is about 8 meters high and about 5 meters wide. The surface is as flat as if cut. The traces of five horses on the wall are of different postures and are caused by rock veins, water marks and moss. However, people would rather believe that it is the relic left by Luqiu Yin, the prefect of Taizhou, leading five fast horses in pursuit of Han Shanzi.

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[Mantis Fishing for Toad] Beside ‘Five Horses Shadow’, there is a huge peak rising straight into the sky, shaped like a cylinder, more than 40 meters high and more than 20 meters in circumference, with all sides suspended in the air. There are old flowers and irrigation water on the peak top, and there is no way to climb. From a distance, it looks like an upright mantis with its pincers curled up. In the past, there was an ancient vine hanging straight from the old tree on the peak top to the ground and connected to a large rock shaped like a three-legged toad (ancient times called a toad) lying under the cylindrical peak. Therefore, it is called ‘Mantis Fishing for Toad’. Unfortunately, this ancient vine was cut down forty or fifty years ago.

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