Lion Grove Garden

Lion Grove Garden (Shizilin) is located on 23 Yuanlin Road, in the northeast of Suzhou – a city with profound cultural background and convenient developmental advantages. It is one of the four most famous and representative gardens of ancient classical style in Suzhou City. The other three are Canglang Pavilion (Blue Wave Pavilion), Lingering Garden (Liu Yuan) and Humble Administrator’s Garden (Zhuozheng Yuan).

Lion Grove Garden was built in 1342 during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) by a group of Zen Buddhist disciples of Monk Tianru as a memorial of their master – Monk Zhongfeng. Afterwards, it has changed hands and been renamed a number of times. Since Monk Tianru had once researched the Buddhism sutras at Lion Cliff on West Tianmu Mountain in Zhejiang Province with the guidance of Monk Zhongfeng, also there were many grotesque rocks in the garden resembling lions, the garden was first given the name Lion Grove. At that time, the garden was a popular center to host activities for literati and Buddhists. Many paintings and poems were inspired by it. Later, its name was changed to Bodhi Orthodox Temple (Puti Zhengzong) and Sheng’en Temple successively.