Wǔtái Shān

Mount Wutai in northern Shanxi is a ring of five flat-topped mountains. Chinese Buddhism counts it first among the four great bodhisattva mountains, the bodhimanda of Manjushri; monks identified it with the clear cold mountain named as Manjushri's abode in the Avatamsaka Sutra, giving it the older name of Mount Qingliang.

By the seventh century pilgrims from India and Central Asia were travelling there, and Tang patronage left two of the oldest surviving timber buildings in China, the main hall of Nanchan Temple of 782 and the East Hall of Foguang Temple of 857.

Over the following dynasties Han Buddhist monasteries and Tibetan Buddhist lamaseries grew side by side on its terraces, among them Xiantong Temple, Tayuan Temple and Pusading, drawing imperial visits and endowments down to the Qing.