After his death in 121 a shrine with his grave was built in his hometown, but was soon neglected and damaged by floods, while his name was largely forgotten. During the late 7th-century of the Tang dynasty, many national heroes were deified, such as Li Bai and Guan Yu as the gods of wine and war respectively. Cai was among the important people declared gods, being deified as the national god of papermaking. Cai also became a patron saint for papermakers, with his image often being painted or printed onto paper mills and paper shops in not only China, but also Japan. In 1267, a man named Chen Tsunghsi raised funds to repair the long-damaged shrine, and renovated it to include a statue of Cai and a mausoleum. Chen stated that "Tsai Lung's Lun's extraordinary talent and his achievement are exemplary to all ages." A stone mortar, which legends claim Cai used to make paper, may have been brought to the mausoleum, although other sources say it was brought to the Imperial Museum in the capital of Lin'an. A great ceremony was held for the new mausoleum, although it eventually fell into ruin again and had to be restored in 1955. Today, the temple still stands in Leiyang as the near a pool, renamed the "Cai Lun Pool", that was thought to be near Cai's home. In the Song dynasty, Fei Chu () said there was a temple in Chengdu where hundreds of families in the papermaking business would come to worship Cai.