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One of China"s most ancient Buddhist sites,
the Five Terrace Mountain (Wutai shan) is a quiet
area that, despite recent tourist infiltration, still retains its Buddhist roots.
With an almost alpine atmosphere of dense forests and often snow capped peaks,
the mountain is a great place to have your introspective wanderings interrupted
by some stunningly beautiful scenery. The area is also known for its purity,
with clean air, that distinguishes it from the province"s polluted cities of
Datong and
Taiyuan, clean
streams, including the aptly named Clear Water River (Qingshui
he), and a piety of Buddhist thought. Wutaishan is one of China"s four sacred Buddhist mountains
(Si da fojiao mingshan), along with E"meishan, Jiuhuashan and
Putuoshan. It is located
close to the northeastern border of Shanxi, not far from both Datong and even
the Great Wall (about 150km). The mountain is so named for
the five terraces that form a coarse circle around a hilly valley. The tallest
of these peak terraces is the northern peak, that jutts to
3058 meters above sea level, making it the largest in the north of China. The
valley that these five peaks surround is centered upon a small village, Taihuai,
that itself holds around 15 to 20 temples, and that is the focal point for travellers
to start their trekking in the area. Recorded Buddhist history of the mountain goes back
as far as the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD), and it was around this time that a wandering
Indian monk is said to have met the Manjusri Buddha (Wenchu
Buddha in Chinese, Buddha of Wisdom) in a dream. This Buddha was also said to
have stayed on the mountain, when he took bodily form, and legend has it that his hairs
are still kept in a small pagoda in the Tayuan
Temple. In such circumstances, the mountain was dedicated to Manjusri, and many
statues on the mountain still depict this personage riding a lion with sword and sutra in
hand (a fierce pro-intellectual). The area has seen many productive peaks and
destructive purges in its time, although both have historically been somewhat lessened by
the remoteness of the mountains. The Tang (618-907 AD) and Ming
(1368-164 AD) Dynasties saw probably the most prosperous periods for Wutaishan, and many
of the temples in the area still have architecture from these periods. In the highs of the
Tang, the area had a total of over 200 monasteries. Purges have also at various times and
for various reasons passed through the mountain, although the purges of the late
Tang and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) are probably the most
famous. The Anti-Buddhist persection of the late Tang hit the area badly and many of the
temples were either destroyed or allowed to deteriorate for almost 300 years. The more
anti-intellectual basis (intellectuals were Mao"s stinking ninth category), that was a
cornerstone of the Cultural Revolutionary movement, fortunately did not turn the Red
Guards sights towards wise Manjusri"s mountain and most of the temples were left
untouched. A lucky twist of fate. Nowadays there are around 50 or so monasteries in this area, many of
them dedicated to the worship of the Yellow Hat Sect of Tibetan
Buddhism (Gelukpa). The majority of these temples are to be found in
little Taihuai, so that nowadays the village looks more like one huge temple, than a
village. |
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