On both sides of the Linyuan Cave, there are more than 200 cliff inscriptions since the Song Dynasty, accounting for about half of the more than 480 existing cliff inscriptions in Gushan. All styles of Chinese calligraphy, such as regular script, running script, cursive script, official script and seal script, are available, making it like a natural treasure house of stone carving calligraphy, and it is praised as the “Stele Forest in the Southeast”. Among the inscriptions, there are nearly 100 from the Song Dynasty, 12 from the Yuan Dynasty, more than 30 from the Ming Dynasty, and more than 100 from the Qing Dynasty to the present.
There is also a beautiful legend about the origin of Heshui Rock. It is said that more than 900 years ago, Master Shengyan, the founder of Yongquan Temple, was chanting scriptures here. Disliking the noise of the stream under the cave, he shouted loudly and stopped the flowing water. Since then, the stream changed its course and gushed out from the stone wall of Guanyin Pavilion on the east side of the mountainside, and the original stream dried up. Therefore, the character “喝” in “Heshui Rock” is not pronounced in the first tone here, but in the fourth tone, meaning “scold”.
Linyuan Cave and Its Cliff Inscriptions in Fuzhou
On both sides of the Linyuan Cave, there are more than 200 cliff inscriptions since the Song Dynasty[...]
