The Hutuo River is a major river in northern

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

and an important member of

Hai River The Hai River (海河, lit. "Sea River"), also known as the Peiho, ("White River"), or Hai Ho, is a Chinese river connecting Beijing to Tianjin and the Bohai Sea. During the Song dynasty, the main stream of the Hai River was called the lowe ...

system. It derives from

Wutai Mountain Mount Wutai, also known by its Chinese name Wutaishan and as is a sacred Chinese Buddhism, Buddhist site at the headwaters of the Qingshui (Shanxi), Qingshui in Shanxi Province, China. Its central area is surrounded by a cluster of flat-topped ...

Shanxi province Shanxi; formerly romanised as Shansi is a province in North China. Its capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level cities are Changzhi and Datong. Its one-character abbreviation is ( ...

and flows through the

Taihang Mountains The Taihang Mountains () are a Chinese mountain range running down the eastern edge of the Loess Plateau in Shanxi, Henan and Hebei provinces. The range extends over from north to south and has an average elevation of ; its principal peak is ...

to reach the

North China Plain The North China Plain () is a large-scale downfaulted rift basin formed in the late Paleogene and Neogene and then modified by the deposits of the Yellow River. It is the largest alluvial plain of China. The plain is bordered to the north by th ...

, and meets the Ziya River near the

Xian County Xian County or Xianxian () is a county in the east of Hebei province of China. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Cangzhou. Administrative divisions Towns: * Leshou (), Huaizhen (), Guozhuang (), Hechengjie () Tow ...

of the

Hebei province Hebei is a Provinces of China, province in North China. It is China's List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, sixth-most populous province, with a population of over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. It bor ...

, finally meeting the

Bohai Bay Bohai Bay () is one of the three major bays of the Bohai Sea, the northwestern and innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea. It is bounded by the coastlines of eastern Hebei province ( Tangshan and Cangzhou), Tianjin municipality and northern Sha ...

close to the Haibin and Gangxi residential areas, approximately 50 km south of

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

's centre. Other notable areas where it flows through are the city of

Shijiazhuang Shijiazhuang; Mandarin: ; formerly known as Shimen and romanized as Shihkiachwang is the capital and most populous city of China's Hebei Province. A prefecture-level city southwest of Beijing, it administers eight districts, three county-le ...

, the capital of

. The total length of Hutuo River is about 587 km and the watershed area is about 27300 km². The discharge is approximately 220 million cubic meters per year. The

Linji school The Línjì school () is a school of Chan Buddhism named after Linji Yixuan (d. 866). It took prominence in Song dynasty, Song China (960–1279), spread to Japan as the Rinzai school and influenced the nine mountain schools of Korean Seon. Hi ...

(sect) of

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

, influential in China and

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, takes its name from a Linji Temple that existed on the shores of the river. The sect was created by the Chan Buddhist monk

Linji Yixuan Japanese painting of Linji Linji Yixuan (; ''Rinzai Gigen''; died 866 CE) was a Tang dynasty (618-907) Chinese monk and teacher of the Hongzhou school of Chinese Chan (Zen). Linji was the leading figure of Chan Buddhism in the Tang, and the '' ...

, who joined the temple around 851.Youru Wang (2017): ''Historical Dictionary of Chan Buddhism''. 386 pages The Hutuo river is called Koda by Japanese adepts of the Linji school.Penny Kaela Bauer (2019):
Kodatei
. TraditionalKyoto website. Accessed on 2019-03-25.

References

Rivers of Shanxi Rivers of Hebei {{China-river-stub