Linggu Temple is located at the southern foot of Zhongshan Mountain and at the foot of Xiaomao Mountain to the east of Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum. It was first built in the 14th year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1381), and most of it was rebuilt during the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty.
Historical records show that in the ninth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1376), Zhu Yuanzhang chose Mount Everest to build the Xiaoling Mausoleum, so he moved the Jiangshan Temple where he was visiting Mount Everest and built it here. After the temple was built, Zhu Yuanzhang named it Linggu Temple, and inscribed the stone carving of "The First Zen Forest" on the temple gate, which meant that Linggu Temple would become the first of the Zen forests in the world and would be granted extensive land. Later, Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty built additional temples, forming a large temple covering an area of ??500 acres. However, due to repeated war damage, most of the buildings in the temple were destroyed. Linggu Temple was once one of the forty-eight scenic spots in Jinling. The ancients once praised Linggu Temple with poems such as the Buddhist temples were built with barriers, and the monks' dormitories drew water from the springs. Legend has it that the eminent monk Tan Yin visited Zhongshan Mountain in the clouds and suddenly heard the sound of gold, stone, silk and bamboo. He followed the sound and found a quiet spring. He thought it was God's charity to the world and named the spring Gongde Spring. Because this spring has one clear, two cold, three fragrant, four soft, five sweet, six pure, seven dull, and eight clear water, it is also called the Eight Merits Water. At that time, monks used spring water to treat people's illnesses. After contemporary inspection, this spring is mineral water and it does have curative effect. In 1928, the Kuomintang rebuilt the National Revolutionary Martyrs' Shrine at the original site of Linggu Temple. The only remaining beamless hall of the original Linggu Temple was rebuilt into the shrine. To the west of Wuliang Hall are Zhigong Hall and Zhi Cemetery, with Sanjue Stele in front of the tomb. The stele is engraved with a portrait of Bao Zhigong, an eminent monk from the Liang Dynasty, and a portrait and praise, which were painted by Wu Daozi, a painter of the Tang Dynasty. The portrait and praise were written by Li Bai, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, and written by the famous calligrapher Yan Zhenqing, so they are called the Three Wonders. However, the stele is no longer the original from the Tang Dynasty, but a copy made during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty.