Mount Tai Shan, Five Peaks, one of the Nine Sacred Mountains of China continue… July 27, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Airlines, Cars, Destination, England, Greece, Hotels, Malaysia, Sightseeing, Sweden, Trails, Trip, Venezuela, Wales , 4commentsShortly after midnight, a monk with a lantern awoke them with the cry: ‘The Bodhisattva has appeared!’ They threw on their clothes, their teeth chattering with the cold, the excitement, or both, and they scrambled across the temple courtyard and mounted to the tower. As they entered they found themselves facing one of the windows looking out on the vastness of the space beyond. Everyone gasped in surprise — none of them was prepared for what they saw. Numerous orange spheres of light where floating ‘majestically’ through the darkness of the mountain night beyond the window. (more…)
Mount Tai Shan, Five Peaks, one of the Nine Sacred Mountains of China July 27, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Asia, Flight Schedule, Hotels, Motel, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Travel Gear, Trip , 4commentsMount Tai Shan (WU T’AI SHAN) is oneof the Nine Sacred Mountains of China. It is situated some hundred miles southwest of Beijing. It has five main peaks which rise over a central plateau, itself about 8,000 feet (2,440m) above the North China Plain: the name Wu T’ai means Five Peaks or Terraces.
It is one of the relatively few World Heritage sites that is both a place of natural significance and a cultural site, for scattered across the plateau, perched on ridges and high up the five peaks themselves, are some 300 temples. Wu T’ai is, or was, sacred not only to the Chinese but also to the Tibetans and Mongolians. The temples originated from all three traditions of Buddhism and also Taoism, coloured with hints of earlier nature religions and their deities. The culmination of the journey for many of the pilgrims was to offer homage as they walked 1,080 times around the chorten on the mountain supposedly containing a relic of the Buddha. (It may just be an interesting coincidence, but 1,080 is one of the key numbers of various ancient, arcane traditions of numerological knowledge.) (more…)
