Mount Wutai: a sacred place of buddhism recognized as UNESCO’s world heritage.

06.29.2009

Mount Wutai now officially belongs to UNESCO’s world heritage list. With its five plateaus and its 53 monasteries, this place is sacred for Chinese buddhism. Thus, Mount Wutai is one of the four sacred mountains of buddhism.

Located in Shanxi, Wutai is the place of practice of the Bodhisattva of wisdom. This mountain has an unusual topography consisting in five peaks. Referred as the first among the four great mountains, Wutai’s bodhisattva is believed to frequently manifest himself on the mountain, taking the form of monks, or most often unusual five-colored clouds.

Mount Wutai is extraordinary rich of archeological treasures, such as the oldest wooden buildings in China from the Tang era between the 7th and the 10th century.

Among the monasteries and the temples located on the mountain, some of them are especially well-known. For instance, the Nanshan Temple with its seven terraces and its three parts. It is actually the biggest buddhist temple in China.

The “clear cool mountain” reveals loads of treasure; temples with bronze pagodas, wondeful brick temples. And it’s a place full of legends. For instance, Luo Hou, one of the Bodhisattva Wisdom is said to have danced a “ghost dance” to mark his birthday on the 14th of June. Since then, monks performed a masked dance from dawn to dusk.

Mount Wutai is also famous from being one place of the adventures of Lu Zhishen, the “flowery monk”, who refused to respect the buddhist code concerning abstinence from meat and wine. He was finally excluded and banished from the Buddha’s Peak Monastery.

The “clear cool mountain” is eventually a main place for chinese buddhism and also for tibetan buddhists, and offer to visitors an astonishing change of scenery.

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Thomas PRADO for www.buddhachannel.tv