Hanshan Temple, Buddhist temple in Gusu District, Suzhou, China

Hanshan Temple is a Buddhist temple in Gusu District, Suzhou, covering more than one hectare with several buildings arranged around open courtyards. The main hall houses a gilded statue, and a tall bell tower stands near pavilions and stone pathways shaded by mature trees.

The temple was founded during the Liang Dynasty in the early 6th century under the name Miaoli Puming and later renamed after the monk Hanshan. Over the centuries, fires destroyed and rebuilt the complex multiple times, with most current structures dating from the Qing period.

The temple's fame rests on Zhang Ji's quatrain 'Maple Bridge Night Mooring', written around the mid-8th century and carried in both the Tangshi Xuan and Santishi anthologies read in Japan. Song poet Ouyang Xiu questioned the midnight bell line, prompting a debate over Tang bell-ringing customs. The Ming scholar Wen Zhengming's stele of the poem, recut by Yu Yue in 1906, stands in the grounds, and rubbings are sold as souvenirs.

The temple stands about 5 kilometers west of Suzhou's old town, 3 kilometers south-southwest of Suzhou Station, facing Maple Bridge Road. The grounds run east-west: the yellow screen wall marks the western entrance, the Mahavira Hall and bell tower lie in the center, and the Puming Pagoda stands at the eastern end. Maple Bridge, a stone arch bridge 100 meters north, cannot be crossed by car.

On New Year's Eve, monks strike the large bell exactly 108 times, a Buddhist tradition meant to dispel worldly worries. Visitors from Japan often come here because a famous poem by Zhang Ji mentions the temple bell.