苏州狮子林英文导游词_0.doc

PAGE  PAGE 20 苏州狮子林英文导游词 Lion Grove Garden Lion Grove Garden is famous as a representative garden of the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368). Construction on it started in 1342. Originally named Bodhi Orthodox Monastery, it was built by the monk Tianru for his teacher, the monk Zhongfeng who lived at Lion Cliff in the West Tianmu Mountains in Zhejiang Province, and in the garden were a large number of rocks shaped like lions. Repaired many times during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, the garden is noted for its rockeries and covers an area of 16.7 mu, or 2.7 acres. Most of its hills are in the southeastern part of the garden while the ponds and streams are in the northwest. It ranks among the unique gardens in Suzhou. And it is listed as the world cultural heritage of UNESCO. It was Qianlong Emperor (1736-1796) who made this garden well-known in China. The emperor visited the garden six times during his five inspection tours in our area south of the Yangtze River. He had the very garden copied in both Beijing and Chengde. He liked the garden and its rockeries so much that he left three inscription, drew three paintings with the garden’s scenery as the theme, and composed ten poems, one of which was inscribed on a stela displayed in the garden. Behind the magnificent gate of its entrance hall is spacious courtyard paved with rectangular stone-slabs and surrounded with a corridor. And it stretches for hundreds of metres along the northern parts used to be living quarters including halls, studios and pavilions. The garden’s western and southern parts are enclose