by Admin on 2/7/09

Mt. Wutai

Historical Shakyamuni was born and attained his Buddha-hood in Nepal and never set his foot in China. But since Chinese found Buddhist teaching is so compatible with and can be a complement to the existing Chinese culture (namely Confucius and Daoist) which is based on an universal humanity with an inclusive and rational attitude, Buddhism quickly become part of Chinese civilisation, thus four sacred figures emerged said to be the Sinologists from the higher Buddhist world devoted to China affairs. These four towering figures are Wenshu Bodhisattva (文殊菩萨), Puxian Bodhisattva (普贤菩萨), Dizang Bodhisattva (地藏菩萨) and Guanyin Bodhisattva (观世菩萨).

Chinese warmly welcomed these holy volunteers and allocated four moutains to help them settle down. Consequently, Guanyin Bodhisattva built her home in an island called Mt. Putuo (普陀山) in Zhejiang Province (浙江), Dizang developed his teaching theatre on Mt Jiuhua (九华山) in Anhui Province (安徽), Puxian shared his campus site with Daoists at Mt Emei (峨眉山) in Sichuan Province (四川) and Wenshu built his school on a mountain with distinctive five flat peaks named accordingly as Mt. Wutai (五台山) in Shanxi Province (山西).

On 26 June 2009, Wenshu Bodhisattva's school yard, that consists of more than 50 monasteries with some dating back to 4th century, was added to UNESCO's list of the world cultural heritage sites.

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