Lion Grove Garden

The story

In 1342, in the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), the disciples of the Chan master Tianru Weize bought land in Suzhou and built him a temple. His own teacher had lived on Lion Rock in the Tianmu mountains, and in the scriptures the Buddha's teaching is called the lion's roar. So the temple garden, full of rocks that look like lions, was called the Lion Grove.

The rockery is the largest in the Suzhou gardens: a hill of lake rocks pierced by caves and tunnels, with paths on three levels that loop and cross. The usual account gives nine paths and twenty-one cave mouths. You can see your friends a few metres away and not be able to reach them.

Part of Classical Gardens of Suzhou. Also there: Humble Administrator's Garden, Lingering Garden, Master of the Nets Garden, Canglang Pavilion, Mountain Villa with Embracing Beauty, Garden of Cultivation, Couple's Retreat Garden, Retreat and Reflection Garden.

What is here

One ticket covers the whole garden. The Suzhou Museum and the Humble Administrator's Garden are a few minutes away, with their own tickets or bookings.

If you have one minute

Inside the rock maze

Look at the rocks around you and find a lion: a head, a mane, a tail, a paw. People say there are five hundred of them. Then try to reach the little pavilion on top without going back the way you came.

The Qianlong emperor (r. 1735–1796) visited on his southern tours and loved it. He had copies built in his own gardens, at the Old Summer Palace in Beijing and at the summer palace at Chengde. One of his inscriptions is still over a pavilion here: "true delight".

In 1917 the garden was bought by Bei Runsheng, a Shanghai merchant who had made his fortune in dyes. He restored it and added a family shrine and a stone boat. His grand-nephew, the young I. M. Pei, played in the rocks; seventy years later he designed the Suzhou Museum a few minutes away.

Things people often get wrong

"There are lions in the garden." There are only rocks, and the lion of the Buddha's teaching.

"It is a Ming garden like the others." It began as a Yuan temple, and the temple and garden were separated only in the Qing (1644–1912).

"The stone boat is old." It was built by the Bei family in the twentieth century, of concrete, with coloured glass in its windows.

People who stood here

We searched Chinese sources first for this list, then English ones.

• Tianru Weize (Chan master, Yuan dynasty)His disciples built the temple for him in 1342. He wrote of the garden as a place of rocks and bamboo for quiet sitting.
• Ni Zan (painter, 1301–1374)One of the four great painters of the Yuan, he painted the Lion Grove in 1373, and his scroll made the garden famous.
• The Qianlong emperor (r. 1735–1796)He came on his southern tours, wrote poems about the garden and had it copied twice in the north.
• Bei Runsheng (merchant, 1870–1945)The "king of dyes" of Shanghai bought the garden in 1917, spent years restoring it, and opened it to visitors.
• I. M. Pei (architect, 1917–2019)He spent summers here as a boy and said the rocks taught him how man and nature can work together. His Suzhou Museum of 2006 has a rock garden of its own.

Go deeper: seven stops, in and out of the rocks

Go through the halls first, then into the rocks, then round the pond. Allow ninety minutes, more with children.

1. The Hall of Swallows' Praise

The main hall of the garden, a mandarin-duck hall in two halves, north and south. Its name comes from the Book of Songs, a line about feasting and good fame.

Look at the floors outside: pebbles laid in pictures of a carp, a gold ingot, coins and flowers.

2. The Hall of Standing in the Snow

Its name recalls a Chan story: the monk Huike stood all night in the snow outside Bodhidharma's cave, asking to be taught. It is a reminder that this was a temple.

3. The rockery

Go in. The caves are low, so watch your head. Paths go up and down three levels, and a bridge crosses between two hills. Count the cave mouths you pass through.

The rocks are lake rocks from Lake Tai, worn into holes by water over thousands of years. The best ones were chosen for their likeness to animals.

4. The True Delight Pavilion

A pavilion on the water with carved and gilded beams, finer than the rest of the garden, because the emperor sat here. The board says "true delight" in Qianlong's hand.

5. The stone boat and the waterfall

A boat of stone and concrete moored at the edge of the pond, built by the Bei family. Its windows have coloured glass, a taste of 1920s Shanghai in a Yuan garden.

In the north-west corner, water falls down the rocks from a hidden tank. It is one of the very few waterfalls in a Suzhou garden.

6. The Asking Plum Pavilion and the Dark Fragrance Tower

The plum tree is the flower of the scholar. In the Asking Plum Pavilion the windows, the tables and the floor are all in the shape of the plum blossom.

The tower is named from a line of Lin Bu, the hermit who "took the plum tree for his wife": sparse shadows slanting across clear shallow water, dark fragrance drifting under the yellow dusk moon.

7. The pond and the bridges

Round the pond, a stone bridge zigzags under the rocks and a lake-pavilion stands in the water. In autumn the ginkgo trees turn yellow and the chrysanthemum show fills the courtyards.

The garden and the same years elsewhere

The temple was built in 1342, five years after the Hundred Years' War began between England and France. Ni Zan painted it in 1373, five years after the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) was founded. Bei Runsheng bought it in 1917, the year of the Russian Revolution, the year his grand-nephew I. M. Pei was born.