Datong, Shanxi, China
灵岩寺 · Língyán Sì
A temple of the Northern Wei, rebuilt in our own century on an island in the lake before the Yungang caves. The monk Tanyao founded the first temple here in the 460s, when he began the caves. What you see today is a new building after old descriptions, reached along an avenue of carved columns.
Photo: Yumeto, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
In 460 the monk Tanyao asked the Northern Wei (386–534) emperor to cut five great caves in the cliff of Wuzhou Mountain, west of the capital Pingcheng, today's Datong. Monks needed somewhere to live and pray beside them, and temples rose below the cliff and on top of it. The geographer Li Daoyuan, who saw them, wrote: halls on the hill and palaces on the water, the temples looking at each other through the mist.
Those temples are gone. When Datong cleared the coal roads and factories away from the caves in the 2000s, it built a large new park in front of them, and in it, on an island in a new lake, a temple in Northern Wei style called the Lingyan Temple, a name the old cave temple is said to have borne. Meanwhile, from 2008 to 2011, archaeologists digging on top of the cliff found the real foundations of a Northern Wei temple.
Part of Yungang Grottoes. Also there: Yungang Caves.
The temple is inside the Yungang scenic area and covered by the Yungang ticket.
| Part | Ticket |
|---|---|
| Tanyao Square and the avenue of columns | Yungang ticket |
| The Lingyan Temple | Yungang ticket |
| The caves | Yungang ticket |
Across the water stands a temple of three courtyards with deep eaves and plain red columns, built in the style of the fifth century as scholars imagine it. Behind it, a few hundred metres away, the cliff of the caves runs east and west.
山堂水殿，烟寺相望
Halls on the hill and palaces on the water, temples facing each other through the mist
Li Daoyuan, Commentary on the Water Classic, early 6th century
Be clear about what it is: a new building, not a ruin restored. It gives you a sense of how the caves once sat among temples and water, and a quiet place before the crowds of the caves.
"This is the temple of the Northern Wei." It is a modern building on a new island. The real Northern Wei remains are on top of the cliff and in front of the caves.
"The avenue of columns is ancient." It was built with the new park, with carvings copied from motifs in the caves.
We searched Chinese sources first for this list, then English ones.
From the entrance, walk through Tanyao Square and along the avenue to the lake, cross to the temple, then go on to the caves. Half an hour for the temple itself.
The bronze monk stands at the start of the way, his hands together. Look at his face: the sculptor gave him the calm of the great Buddha of Cave 20.
Pairs of stone columns carved with Buddhas, lotuses and elephants line the avenue. At their feet, elephants carry the columns, as elephants carry columns in the caves.
The lake was dug to bring back the halls on the water of Li Daoyuan's description. The river below the caves, the old Wuzhou river, ran here.
Three courtyards lead to the main hall. Inside, rows of small Buddhas fill the walls, echoing the thousand-Buddha walls of the caves. The pagoda in the courtyard copies the stone pagodas carved in the caves.
From the island, walk north to the cliff. The first caves you reach are 1 and 2 at the east end; the five great caves of Tanyao are at the west.
Tanyao began the caves in 460, sixteen years before the last Roman emperor in the West was deposed.
| Year | Here | Elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| 460 | Tanyao begins the five great caves | Attila has been dead seven years |
| 494 | The court moves from Pingcheng to Luoyang | Clovis rules the Franks |
| 2011 | Northern Wei temple remains on the clifftop are among China's ten major finds of the year | The Arab Spring |
One line to remember: a new temple after an old description, in front of real caves.
These are stories people tell about this place. They are legends, not history, and each one says where it comes from.
Tanyao's five great Buddhas are said to stand for the first five emperors of the Northern Wei, so that worshipping the Buddha meant honouring the throne.
Source: A widely held reading, after the saying of the time that the emperor was the Buddha of today
Later, people who live here will be able to add the stories they grew up with, and say which of these they have heard.
Checked 2026-11-12 Yungang Academy, which runs the site. Tickets are sold through its WeChat account and authorised platforms.
Last checked 2026-11-12. The Yungang ticket rules of 2025–26 as reported in the press; the Yungang scenic area's own notices are on its WeChat account.
Checked 2026-11-12
Opening hours are given in the local time of the place. Prices are in the local currency. The figure after ≈ is approximate, at exchange rates checked on 9 November 2026, in .
Stand at the site, sign in, press the button, and collect its stamp. Your browser will ask to use your location. It is sent to us once to confirm that you are at the site; we keep how far you were from it, not the spot where you stood.
Your stamps are saved to your account, so they follow you to any device. Checking from a browser cannot rule out every false location; stricter checks arrive with the app.
Photos here show the place, not people. Each one is credited to the visitor who took it and appears after our team has looked at it. A photo with you in it belongs under “I am here”.