I have long since known that there is a huge rock where the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty (221-206 B.C.) presumably moored his huge ship when he came to Zhejiang over 2，200 years ago. The other day， I went to the Gem Hill on the northern bank of the West Lake in search of the rock. I picked my way up a narrow stone-step path past two low houses on the slope. I counted about 30 stone steps before I found myself face a narrow rocky valley and see a huge rock. The rock bore the carving marks. I negotiated another 20 steps before I spotted a black stone which indicated “a cultural relic under municipal protection”.

The rock is exactly what I wanted to see. It appears in quite a few ancient poems and records. However， history does not pinpoint that it is this rock where the First Emperor tied his ship when he came to present-day Hangzhou. And most records confess it was pure hearsay. According to Book of History by Sima Qian， the emperor’s ship came to Zhejiang and， finding the waves were huge， it sailed westward for 60 kilometers before it reached a narrow part of the river. And the emperor landed and went southward to visit the Tomb of Yu the Great in present-day Shaoxing. Scholars based their calculation on this description and concluded that 60 kilometers from the mouth of the river was exactly where the present-day West Lake was. So the only conspicuous rock on this part of the shore was conveniently designated.

But doubt has remained. People ask how the royal ship could reach the spot of the lake which is separated from the river by a dry land and where the rock is more than 10 meters above the lake. Modern scholars have tried to solve this puzzle. Zhu Kezhen pointed out that the lake used to be part of the place where the river emptied into the eastern sea and it was not that far away from the sea at all in ancient times. Geologist Zhang Hongzhao explained that the lake was part of a sea bay in ancient times and became a lake when the sea receded. He went on to say that if one takes a look at the lake from the nearby North Peak， one can recognize the horse-shoe shape of the lake. Zhang Wenpei， a leading water transport expert， came up with an explanation concerning how the emperor could come to Hangzhou by ship. According to him， the Taihu Lake， a very large lake that spans Zhejiang and Jiangsu Province， used to be a much larger lagoon in ancient time. It was easy to travel by ship through this large water-system during the Qin Dynasty. After the emperor unified the country， he sent soldiers to construct a canal to connect the Yangtze River with the lagoon area. That’s how he took the route as specified in history to reach Hangzhou.

Although modern theories and ancient descriptions are not particularly convincing， local people have long since regarded rock as an antique.

A Qing poet described the big attraction of the mooring rock by saying that boats moored outside the Qiantang Gate and the big Buddha head attracted men and women. The poem points to two historical facts. The mooring rook was carved into a Buddha head and the attraction was as old as at least the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). A record by a Song scholar says that Monk Sijing had carved a half-length rock statue of Buddha. A scholar in the Song Dynasty says that a secular man committed himself to a life in a Buddhist temple and had a rock on the north bank of the West Lake carved into a big head of Buddha. Though these records may seem contradictory and are vague about where the big head is， most scholars tend to believe that they are about the big head that used to be the mooring stone. Another scholar in the Yuan Dynasty writes that a man called Zhen Longyou from Yongjia in southern Zhejiang composed a Buddhist hymn for the big head in Hangzhou， saying the Buddha’s gilded face looks like a full moon and there is half a timber pile half buried there.

A 13-room pavilion-styled Buddhist temple was built around the Buddha Head in the Song Dynasty. In the next 800 years， many a celebrity visited or lived there. History says that during his reign as magistrate of Hangzhou， Su Dongpo regularly handled official businesses there. During the Great Revolution in the 20th century， Zhang Wentian and Cheng Wangdao stayed at the temple. In January， 1921， Zhang Wentian hid himself in the temple and read Communist Manifesto and translated some works by Marx and Engels. In 1928， Guo Dali met Wang Yanan at the temple. The college graduate of philosophy from Shanghai and the college graduate of education from Wuhan worked together and translated Das Kapital into a Chinese version.

Today， the temple is gone but the huge rock remains. A close look at the site of the temple reveals its foundation， stone steps that lead from the lake up the steep slope， and uphill small platforms where pavilion-styled temple once stood.

In 2004， the city government committed itself to restoring the temple and the big head. People are looking forward to a temple that houses a big Buddha statue by the West Lake. There is no convincing evidence that the first emperor did moor there， but the temple and the legend have existed long enough to be called ancient. Once restored， the temple will stand for the legendary mooring and for the ancient visit the first emperor made to Zhejiang.□