Éméi Shān

Mount Emei rises 3,099 metres on the western rim of the Sichuan basin near Jiading, the highest of China's four sacred Buddhist mountains and the bodhimanda of Samantabhadra, known in Chinese as Puxian. Tradition places the first Buddhist temple in China on its slopes in the first century.

Its oldest enduring foundation is Wannian Temple, established by the monk Huichi under the Eastern Jin as Puxian Temple. Rebuilt in 876 by Huitong and renamed Baishui Temple, then restored in 980 by Maozhen, it acquired a bronze image of Samantabhadra riding his white elephant, cast under the Northern Song.

After a Wanli-era fire the Ming court rebuilt the temple from 1600, adding the timberless Brick Hall crowned with five small pagodas. Ming and Qing patronage supported seventy-six monasteries, from Baoguo Temple to the Golden Summit, joined by a fifty-kilometre pilgrim path.