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The religious culture of Thousand Mountain could be traced back to the Northern Wei Dynasty in 1400 years ago. The top five temples already enjoyed a high prestige in Ming Dynasty, which are “Zuyue”, “Longquan”, “Xiangyan”, “Zhonghui”, “Da’an”. Aged temples mixed with beautiful natural sceneries, forming a quiet and elegant painting. Especially the 70 meters high giant buddha statue, which adds more mysterious touch to the mountain. Every year, tons of tourist and pilgrims come here and wash their mind.
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The most well-known tourist spot of the mountain probably is Up-sky Scenery Zone. It’s about 450-550 meters above the sea level, covering an area of 5 square kilometers. More than one emperors in ancient times paid their visits here. Steep peaks, strange-looked rocks, pines trees and cypress mixing together, what a wonderful view in such high ground! With birds singing around the ears, I wish I had a hammock swing so I could sink this all in, maybe take a nap. They also have the one and only temples of Luck, wealth, longevity in whole China. Luck, wealth and longevity are three gods in Taoism.
Wuliang Temple is the earliest and largest Taoist temple in Thousand Mountain. It was built around 300 years ago. It is situated in the north valley and is wrapped with mountains and trees. Another feature of Wuliang temple is its five towers, most of which are Muta(Tomb towers burying monks). Lingtong tower is the one of the oldest buildings there, which can be traced back to Tang dynasty.
When sun rays shine on the tower body made of granite, the view would be really something to look at. If you want to check all the towers very carefully, one day is definitely not enough. Marching forward from Xugong power, there is a giant rock called horse-hitching rock crouching besides the road. The small hole is for those pilgrims to hitch their horses.
The most beautiful building of Wuliang Temple is “West Cabin”. There is a Guanyin temple with two goddess in it, one is called children Goddess and the other is called Eyes Goddess. Those who have trouble having babies would come here and worship here and Eyes Goddess brings light to people. It is strange to have Guanyin in a Taoist temple though.
They have this legend that a monk in Wuliang temple saw the Guanyin and wasn’t very happy about it, so he chopped off Guanyin’s head and changed it with Zhenwu Tati(one of the most famous god in Taoism) in secrete. However, a short while later, the monk was dead for no reason. Other monks were terrified and thought they violated the Guanyin, so they rebuilt the statue.