Mountain Tianmu has a long cultural history and has been a famous religious mountain since ancient China. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Taoist master Zhang Daoling was born in Mountain Tianmu and made a meditation and cultivated vital energy in it. In the Jin Dynasty, Buddhism was introduced into Mountain Tianmu. Since then Buddhism had become a major religion in Mountain Tianmu and had over 50 temples constructed over several dynasties. During the thriving period of Buddhism, over a thousand of monks once gathered here. In the Song Dynasty and latter, there were frequent religious exchanges between Mountain Tianmu, India, and Southeast Asia. Mountain Tianmu is also the origin of Linji Sect Yongyuan Temple Fraction of Japanese Buddhism. Chanyuan Temple, the temple of Buddhistic Origin, which was built in 1665, had 500 Buddhist halls and rooms. It was Jiangnan's famous Buddhist temple with flourishing burning incense. But it was bombed by Japanese Air Force in 1941. Recently supported by the concerned groups, Chanyuan Temple is carrying through its reconstruction.
The marvelous scenery of Mountain Tianmu makes celebrities and scholars in different dynasties to wander here. It is said that Xiao Tong, the Zhaoming Prince of the Liang Dynasty, once retreated in the Prince Hut to punctuate religious scriptures and read the literature. From Li Bai, Bai Juyi and Su Shi in Tang and Song Dynasties, to Zhang Yu in the Yuan Dynasty, and over a hundred of poets and scholars in the Ming Dynasty, ascended Mountain Tianmu and left a number of elegant poems. In the Qing Dynasty Emperor Qianlong came to the mountain to appreciate beautiful mountain scenes, and granted the biggest cedar as “the King of the Giant Trees”. In the years of the Republic of China, Jiang Jieshi, Xu Shichang, Yu Youren, Chen Mingshu, Hu Shi, Yu Dafu, Qian Wenxuan and other elites visited Mountain Tianmu one after another. In March of 1939, Zhou Enlai made a speech about solidifying to counteract Japanese invasion in Chanyuan Temple. Famous painter Xu Beihong and Ye Qianyu etc. came here to paint landscape paintings. Generations of elites enriched human landscapes on top of the famous mountain and bestowed Mountain Tianmu a deep cultural historic foundation, and thereby made it more charming.
Mountain Tianmu has thousands of layers of gracefulness, the forest is a sea of ten miles deep. Ancient trees and gigantic trunks stand on the ground and reach the sky, perilous peaks and strange rocks show thousands of gestures and hundreds of forms, unique flowers and grasses spread colorfully, birds, animals and insects are fitly florid, temples and pavilions are characteristic, religious culture dates back in history, human landscape is richly layered, mountain springs and air are deemed to purify human organs, and local climate is warm in winter and cool in summer.
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