Mount Putuo (普陀山)

A broad flight of stone steps crowded with about twenty-five visitors in winter coats, leading up to a monastery gate under a grey tiled roof with a gold-lettered plaque, with very large black calligraphy painted along the ochre wall on either side, a roofed bronze censer at the top of the steps pouring thick white smoke upward, a figure in an orange robe in the gateway and bare trees overhead

Zhejiang · The Sacred Mountain That Is an Island

Mount Putuo (普陀山)

One of the four mountains Chinese Buddhism holds sacred, and the only one that is an island. It is the seat of Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion, who arrived from India as a male figure and became, in China, a woman. You reach it by boat, and what you walk through when you land is incense, sea fog and working monasteries.

Quick Facts

The Short Version

What it is	A small island off the Zhejiang coast, covered in Buddhist monasteries and counted as one of the four sacred mountains of Chinese Buddhism
Where	In the Zhoushan archipelago, east of Ningbo. Reached by ferry
Whose mountain	Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion, whose principal cult centre in China this is
The other three	Wutai, Emei and Jiuhua. Each is assigned to a different bodhisattva, and this is the only one surrounded by water
The three monasteries	Three large foundations spread across the island, with many smaller halls and hermitages between them
What it is not	A ruin or a museum. These are functioning monasteries with resident monks and a continuous flow of pilgrims
The weather	Maritime and often foggy, which is a large part of the character of the place and of most of the pictures here
Time needed	One night at least. A day trip means seeing it with everyone else’s day trip

Why Go

An Island, a Bodhisattva, and a Change of Sex

1. The bodhisattva who changed

Avalokiteshvara entered China from India as a male bodhisattva, the embodiment of compassion, and is still male in the Indian and Tibetan traditions. Somewhere between roughly the Tang and the Ming the Chinese figure became female, and the standing white-robed woman that Chinese Buddhism calls Guanyin is now recognised right across East Asia. How and why that happened is argued over by historians and this page will not settle it.

What matters for a visitor is that this island is the centre of that cult. Guanyin is the figure ordinary Chinese people petition when something is wrong, which makes her cult less scholarly and more popular than most, and it is why the steps in the picture at the top of this page are full of people carrying incense rather than tourists carrying cameras. The island receives a very large number of visitors a year and a high proportion of them are here to ask for something.

The tradition that fixes the cult on this particular rock is a story about a Japanese monk who, sailing home in the ninth century with an image of Guanyin, was prevented by weather from leaving these waters and concluded that the image did not wish to go. The hall founded where he gave up is still on the island and its name means, roughly, the Guanyin who refused to leave. Whether the story is history is beside the point: it is the reason the island became her mountain, and it explains a religious geography that otherwise looks arbitrary.

2. Being an island is the whole design

The four sacred mountains were not chosen for scenery. They are a set, assigned one to each of four great bodhisattvas, in the same organising spirit as the five imperial peaks: a doctrine laid out across the map of the country so that the geography teaches it. What makes this one different is the water.

A pilgrimage that requires a boat is a different thing from one that requires a bus. The crossing separates the island from ordinary life in a way a mountain road does not, arriving is an event with a time attached to it, and the island is small enough to walk across. Add sea fog, which sits here for days at a time and closes the horizon, and the place does a great deal of the work of a retreat without anyone having to arrange it. Almost every picture on this page is fogged, and that is not bad luck in the photography.

3. What is actually in front of you

Three large monasteries anchor the island and a scatter of smaller halls and hermitages fill in between them, connected by paths, steps and a road. The buildings are ochre-walled with grey tile, and several carry their names in calligraphy a metre high along the outside wall, which is how two of the pictures below identify themselves. There are old trees, some of them very old. On the rocky shore there are clefts in the cliff with small shrines built across them, where the sea sounds underneath.

There is also commerce, and a lot of it. Stalls sell incense, images, prayer beads and souvenirs along the approaches, the ferries are busy, and the whole island is organised to process a great many visitors. That coexists with the religious life rather than replacing it, which is normal for a major pilgrimage site anywhere and is worth expecting rather than being disappointed by.

Two very large Chinese characters modelled in relief and painted dark grey on a deep ochre wall, seen at a sharp angle, with a tall latticed timber window between them, a small inscription beside the nearer character and the dark eaves of a tiled roof above — The monastery’s name in relief on its own outside wall, a metre high. It translates as Dharma Rain.

A curving sand beach with a line of people scattered along it, seen past bare branches carrying new green leaves in the foreground, with the sea at the lower left, a dark belt of pines behind the beach and thick pale fog closing off any horizon — The sea, such as the fog allows. This is the only picture here with water in it, and the horizon is gone.

A deep narrow cleft in dark wet rock dropping into shadow, with a small timber gallery built across the top of it and a figure in red standing in the gallery, lichen and scrub on the rock faces, and a bank of yellow rape flowers in bloom on the right — One of the sea clefts on the island’s shore, with a shrine built over it. People come to these to listen and to look into the dark.

A massive old tree with a thick leaning trunk and long horizontal limbs spreading across the frame, carrying a flush of red new leaves among the green, with mist between the branches and the roof of a building faintly visible below — The island has a lot of very large old trees, which is itself a sign: this ground has not been cleared or rebuilt for a long time.

A monastery entrance with deep ochre walls under a grey tiled roof with upturned eaves, a carved stone plaque over the doorway, two round carved stone medallions set into the wall on either side, a carved stone balustrade and steps, and a pair of stone lions flanking the entrance — A smaller hall’s gate. The ochre wash on the walls is the standard colour for Buddhist foundations here and makes them easy to pick out in the fog.

A row of open-fronted stalls under a long awning beside a wet stone-paved path, hung and stacked with brightly coloured souvenirs, toys and religious goods, with trees behind them and a few people walking past — The commerce along the approaches. It is part of how a pilgrimage site of this size works rather than an intrusion on it.

The catch. This is a popular pilgrimage island, not a quiet one, and on festival days and public holidays it is extremely crowded. Everything has to come across on a boat, so prices on the island run above the mainland and the accommodation is limited enough that it needs booking. The fog that gives the place its atmosphere also removes the sea view entirely for days at a time. And the monasteries are working religious houses, which sets limits on where visitors go and what may be photographed inside.

Orientation

Ferry, Then Walk

Everything begins with the boat. Ferries run from the mainland and from neighbouring islands, and the crossing is short. The landing is at one end of the island, the principal monastery is a short distance inland from it, and the other two large foundations are spread across the island with paths, steps and a road connecting them.

The island is small enough to cross on foot and that is the right way to do it, because most of what is worth seeing is between the big halls rather than inside them: hermitages, stairways, old trees and the rocky shore. There is a summit with a monastery near the top and a cable car for those who want it. The single most useful decision is to stay the night, because the day-trip ferries take the crowd off the island in the late afternoon.

Practical

Things Worth Knowing

Stay over

The island empties when the day boats leave and fills again in the morning. The hours at either end are the reason to come.

Do not plan around the view

Fog closes in here for days. Plan around the buildings and the walking, and treat a clear horizon as a bonus.

Watch what you photograph indoors

These are working monasteries. Interiors and people at prayer are often off limits and the rules are posted.

Check the festival calendar before booking

Guanyin’s principal days bring very large numbers across on the ferries, which is either exactly what you came for or exactly what you did not.

Timing

When to Go

Season	The case for	The catch
April and May	Mild, green, and the island at its most comfortable for walking between the monasteries	The fog season is well under way and the sea is often invisible
September and October	The clearest air of the year and the best chance of actually seeing the water	The first week of October is a national holiday and the ferries and halls are packed
June to August	Warm, long evenings, and the sea breeze makes it easier going than the mainland cities	Hot, humid and the peak of the domestic travel season, with typhoons possible
November to March	Quiet, cold and atmospheric, and the monasteries are at their least crowded	Cold, damp and windy, with rough crossings and reduced ferry services

Context

Four Mountains, One Doctrine

Chinese Buddhism organises its sacred geography the way the imperial state organised its own: as a set. Four mountains, each assigned to one of four great bodhisattvas, spread across the country so that the arrangement itself carries the teaching. Wutai in the north belongs to Manjushri and wisdom, Emei in the west to Samantabhadra and practice, Jiuhua to Ksitigarbha and the vow to empty the hells, and this island to Guanyin and compassion. A pilgrim who visits all four has traced the doctrine across the map.

The bodhisattva is the distinctive idea underneath it. A bodhisattva is someone who has done the work required to leave the cycle of rebirth and has declined to go, staying instead to help everyone else out first. That is the difference between this and the older understanding of the Buddhist goal, and it is why these four figures, rather than the Buddha, have the mountains. Compassion is not a sentiment in this system; it is a job someone has taken on.

Which is also why this island takes far more petitioners than the other three mountains put together. Wisdom and practice are for people who have already committed themselves. Compassion is for everyone with a sick relative or a failing business, and the queue on the steps reflects that exactly. This site covers another of the four at Mount Emei, and the Chan foundation that trained a good deal of this tradition at the Shaolin Temple.

Nearby

Other Stops on the Same Trip

Spot · about 220 km northwest

Wuzhen (乌镇)

A canal town inland, and the usual next stop for anyone working along this coast.

One night.

Spot · about 280 km southwest

Yandang Mountain (雁荡山)

Volcanic cliffs and clefts down the Zhejiang coast, and a complete change of subject.

Two days.

Spot · about 1,200 km west

Mount Emei (峨眉山)

Another of the four sacred mountains, assigned to a different bodhisattva and nothing like this one.

Two days.

Where to Base

Zhoushan (舟山)

Zhoushan is the archipelago and the prefecture the island belongs to, a scatter of hundreds of islands off the Zhejiang coast that between them land a large share of China’s sea fish. The working city is on a neighbouring island and is not a destination, but it is where the transport connections are.

Most visitors come through Ningbo or Shanghai and cross from a mainland or island ferry terminal. Because the last boats set the shape of the day, it is worth fixing the return crossing before planning anything else, and worth considering not returning at all on the same day.

Experiences

What You Can Actually Do Here

On site · one night

The island after the day boats

Cross in the afternoon, walk between the monasteries in the evening, and have the halls at first light before the morning ferries land.

Ferry, entry and a room on the island.

On site · one day

The three monasteries

The principal foundations and the walk between them, for anyone crossing from the mainland and back in a day.

Ferry and entry.

Guided · 4 days

Coast and island

This island with the Zhejiang coast it belongs to, read as one place rather than as a pilgrimage bolted onto a beach holiday.

We arrange this. See experiences.

Cross in the afternoon and stay the night. This is the only one of the four sacred mountains of Chinese Buddhism that is an island, it belongs to Guanyin, and the queue on the steps is made of people who have come to ask for something rather than to look at architecture. The fog will probably take the sea view and it does not matter: what is worth the crossing is the ochre walls with names a metre high on them, the old trees, the clefts in the shore with shrines built over them, and the hour after the day boats have gone.

An Island Pilgrimage, Explained

Most itineraries treat this island as a half-day religious stop near Ningbo, which gets you the crowd and none of the reason. Tell us your dates and our local team will put you on the right ferry, into a bed on the island, and in front of somebody who can explain what the people beside you on the steps are actually doing.

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