Ch: Shiqiao. Lit. "stone bridge." A bridge on Mt. Tiantai 天台山 (Jp: Tendai) in eastern Zhejiang 浙江 Province, China. Mt. Tiantai had significance both as the temple headquarters of the Tiantai (Jp: Tendai 天台) sect in China and the abode of the semi-legendary Tang dynasty Zen eccentrics *Bukan 豊干 and *Kanzan Jittoku 寒山拾得. Legends recount the supposedly enormous height of the bridge, comparing it to a rainbow or turtle's back, and describe its ancient, slippery moss. The span and nearby waterfall were associated, from the late Tang dynasty, with Daoist influenced legends of the Sixteen or Five hundred arhats (*jūroku rakan 十六羅漢 or *gohyaku rakan 五百羅漢).
Earliest extant depictions of the bridge occur in Southern Song rakan paintings including one hanging scroll by Ningbo 寧波 painter Zhou Lichang 周李常 (Jp: Shū Rijō) treasured at Daitokuji 大徳寺, Kyoto, and now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Ming and early Qing dynasty painters continued to depict the Shakkyō although later versions were often landscapes without the inclusion of rakan figures. A few Edo paintings on the theme include one by Soga Shōhaku 曾我蕭白 (1730-81) in the Burke Collection, New York.
The stone bridge is also connected with the legend of a lioness who pushes her cubs off it, nurturing only those with the fortitude to climb back up the precipice. This story is embellished in Zeami's 世阿弥 (1364?-1443) *Noh 能 play Shakkyō 石橋 and in several *kabuki 歌舞伎 plays. A group of kabuki dance-pieces shosagoto 所作事, known as shakkyō mono 石橋物, feature a courtesan who dressed as and was possessed by the lion's spirit does a mad dance, swinging her long mane around, which appears in *ukiyo-e 浮世絵 prints.