Jin Shrine

Jin Shrine stands in Jinyuan District, twenty-five kilometres southwest of Taiyuan, at the foot of Xuanweng Mountain where the Jin Springs rise. It began as a shrine to Tang Shuyu, the founding lord of the Zhou state of Jin, and to his mother Yi Jiang, and grew over centuries into a complex of more than a hundred sculptures, buildings, terraces and bridges. Its founding date cannot be fixed; the earliest written mention is in a Northern Wei commentary on rivers. Chinese readers count the Zhou cypress, the Nalao Spring and the Song painted attendants as the Three Wonders, and the Hall of the Holy Mother, the Flying Bridge over the Fish Pond and the offering hall as its Three Treasures.