Lingshan Temple Fair Lingshan Temple Fair in Luoshan, Xinyang, Henan Province

During the temple fair, tens of thousands of faithful men and women came all the way to Lingshan to climb mountains, worship and visit. Lingshan Temple Fair has a long history. It originated in the Tang Dynasty and flourished in the Ming Dynasty.

During the prosperous Tang Dynasty, the country was rich and the people were strong, Buddhism was popularized, and temples were widely built all over the country. After Princess Channing, the daughter of Emperor Tang Ming, came to Lingshan to become a monk, she expanded Lingshan Temple. With the increasing number of pilgrims coming to Lingshan on the third day of the third lunar month, over time, the temple fair on the third day of the third lunar month was formed and has been passed down to this day. In the third year of Hongwu (A.D. 1370), Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming emperor, thanked the monks of Lingshan Temple for their kind escort, and led hundreds of civil and military officials to Lingshan on the third day of the third lunar month to make incense and make a wish. Su Dongpo, a great writer in the Northern Song Dynasty, also left a poem for the Lingshan Temple Fair: "The Lingshan Temple Fair is still there, and the eight schools are still thriving." Since the reform and opening up, with the implementation of the national religious policy and the rapid development of tourism, religious and cultural tourism has become a major theme of tourism in China. Lingshan Temple Fair has higher and higher specifications, more diverse forms and richer contents. The characteristics are more prominent. Today's Lingshan Temple Fair is a traditional festival of the Han nationality, which integrates "mountaineering pilgrimage, sightseeing, folk customs and folk art" and is quite influential in southern Henan and Hubei. Lingshan Temple Fair is held regularly every year, with 200,000 visitors every year.