Anhui Mount Jiuhua, China

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Mount Jiuhua

Mount Jiuhua is located in Qingyang County Anhui Province.

To the south, one can see as far as to the Mount Huangshan, to the north it overlooks the Yangtze River. It's one of the "Four Famous Chinese Buddhist Mountains" together with Mount Wutai, Mount Emei, and Mount Putuo.

It covers a total area of 120 square kilometers. The tall and old trees covered the mountain, and it is quite and tastefully lay out. Start climbing the mountain from the bottom, throughout the mountain, one can witness old temples with incenses wreath around and the sound from reading Buddhist scriptures and bells come to the ears hourly.

As early as East Jin Dynasty (401AD) temples in Mount Jiuhua was built by some monks. Extending works were carryout throughout the successive dynasties. There were temples everywhere in the mountain.

During most popular period, the number of monks could reach 4 or 5 thousands while the number of temples reaching more than 300. Up to now there are 50 to 60 well preserved temples intact. When Liu Yuxi, the Tang litterateur, climbed up this mountain, he highly praised it and thought that the other mountain can not compared in the same breath with Mount Jiuhua.

The Jiuhua Street, also named "The Kingdom of Lotus", is the must be place while climbing the mountain. Jiuhua Street actually is a town in the mountain. It is the center of the mountain concentrating most of the temples.

Besides the temples, there are shops, schools, hotels and farming houses, etc., where tourists can accommodate themselves there and visit the famous local sites in the mountain.

"The Huacheng Temple" is an ancient Jin temple with a longest history among Mount Jiuhua. It is also the main temple in Mount Jiuhua. This temple was layout according to the feature of the mountain that reflects the characteristic of Chinese ancient architecture. Turning east, not far from the Jiuhua Street, there appears a palace hall built on top of a cliff. This is the well known "Hundred Years Palace".

The best scene in Mount Jiuhua is around Tiantai. Tiantai is the main peak in Mount Jiuhua and is 1300 meters above sea level. From of old theme is a saying " Never been to Tiantai, never been to Mount Jiuhua". It is about 7 kilometers away from the Jiuhua Street to Tiantai with beautiful scene along the road. On top of Tiantai, the mountains around are all under your feet.

There are rocks not only swarthy but also in strange interesting shapes. On a giant stone there carves three big characters "not in this world". Far in distance, the sky and earth harmonizes with each other while the slow mountain wind, soughing of the wind in the pines and the vast beautiful scenes all make people feel like in a fairyland.

Although Mount Jiuhua is already a famous mountain that most Buddhists worshiped on banded kneels, it had experienced up and downs with thousand years passing. The mountain can equally compare with Mount Emei and Mount Putuo. As early as in Ch'ing Dynasty, emperor Kongxi and Qianlong had made several inspection trip to Southern part of China and had conferred tablets "Sacred Jiuhua" and "Develop Spirit of Putuo and Spread over Buddhism" respectively. They also granted funds to repair on "Huacheng Temple".

At the same time, The Hundres Years Palace, The Ganlu Temple, The Dongya Temple and The Zhiyuan Temple also enlarged into one of the four famous temples. Those structures attracted Buddhists to come and made it very well known in throughout the country.

Mount Jiuhua is a mountain with a very long history and has many historical relics. Besides all those famous writings and paintings there are Buddhist stone sculptures on cliff. Mount Jiuhua, a famous tourist mountain combines scenes Buddhism and its nature beauty.

"Ten thousand temples in Jiuhua are scattered amongst the cloud and mist" is a sentence praised numerous temples and beautiful scenes in Mount Jiuhua by ancient people. It has attracted many tourists from all over the world. The best season for Traveling here is from March until November.