Jeremy Wilson

Travel Destinations: Jiuhua Shan, China

Travel Destinations: Jiuhua Shan, China

Jiuhua Shan is one of China?s four sacred Buddhist mountains. Located in Anhui Province, the 99 peaks create the hauntingly beautiful and precarious home of the Bodhisattva Dizang (Ksitigarbha), who is the Lord of the Underworld. This has been a sacred place for worshippers, to ask for blessings on the souls of the recently deceased so that they can reach the Buddhist heaven safely.

In the 6th century CE, the Korean Buddhist worshipper Kim Kiao Kak (also known as Jin Qiaojue), identified Jiuhua Shan as the place to worship Dizang. For centuries, thousands of pilgrims head for Jiuhua Shan for the annual festivals held on Kim?s death.

There are some wonderful sights to see as you climb Jiuhua Shan. You will see worshippers carry on with long sticks of incense to their foreheads as they face each four directions at the Zhiyuan Temple in Jiuhuajie, the village located halfway up. You can see the gigantic twin-eaved Great Treasure Hall (Daxiongbao Dian) which rises dramatically past the Hall of Heavenly Kings. Past this and just off the main main, the Fangsheng Pond (Fangsheng Chi) is filled with turtles and is a good place to sit and reflect for a moment. Also, the beautiful and ancient Huacheng Temple is not far and sees many pilgrims coming to light incense and offer up prayers.

Walking pass Zhiyuan Temple, you will come to Baisui Gong. This is still an active temple, receiving thousands of pilgrims each year that was built in 1630. It was constructed to honour the Buddhist monk Wu Xia, whose body is emaciated, embalmed and covered in gold and now sits in a glass cabinet in front of a line of haunting pink lotus candles. The Five Hundred Luohan Hall (Wubai Luohan Tang) is home to an amazing collection of 500 gilded luohan as well as a beautify effigy of the Buddhist goddess of mercy, Guanyin, at the very centre.

If you don?t like hiking, you can take the cable car up to the ridge. If you carry on walking, you will see monkeys scavenging for scraps along the way. When you reach the top, you will pass the Dongya Temple and the Huixiang Pavilion and the 10,000 Buddha Pagoda. From here, the eastern path will lead you to the cable car station that will take you on to Tiantai Zheng Peak; the western path will take you to town.

On the peak, you will come to Tiantai Temple. Inside there is a beautiful statue of the Dizang Buddha in the Dizang Hall. On the floor above in the 10,000 Buddha Hall, you will see the impressive statue of the Buddha as he looks down on the people gathering at his feet.

. This entry was posted on Monday, February 20th, 2012 at 2:54 am and is filed under China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.