|
Grotto-heaven
Grotto-heavens () or Dongtian are a type of sacred Taoism, Taoist site. Grotto-heavens are usually caves, grottoes, Valley#Hollows, mountain hollows, or other underground spaces. In the Tang dynasty, immortals were thought to have lived in certain immortal cave-heaven lands that existed between heaven and earth, shrouded by colorful clouds; wonderful flowers, peach trees and fragrant grass were often said to have grown there. Because every community was supposed to have access to at least one grotto, there were many of them all over China. They were first organized systematically in Tang times by Sima Chengzhen () (647–735, see Zuowanglun) and Du Guangting () (850-933). The most sacred of these sites were divided into two types: The ten greater grotto-heavens and the thirty-six lesser grotto-heavens.Kohn (2000), p. 696. Locations of the ten greater grotto-heavens are as follows: * Mount Wangwu, Mt. Wangwu grotto (Henan) * Mt. Weiyu grotto (Zhejiang) * Mt. Xicheng grotto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guangdong
) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty near modern Wuzhou, whose name is a reference to an order by Emperor Wu of Han to "widely bestow favors and sow trust". Together, Guangdong and Guangxi are called ''Liangguang, Loeng gwong'' ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t=兩廣, s=两广 , p=liǎng guǎng) During the Song dynasty, the Two Guangs were formally separated as ''Guǎngnán Dōnglù'' ( zh, first=t, t=廣南東路, s=广南东路, l=East Circuit (administrative division), Circuit in Southern Guang , labels=no) and ''Guǎngnán Xīlù'' ( zh, first=t, t=廣南西路, s=广南西路, l=West Circuit (administrative division), Circuit in Southern Guang , labels=no), which became abbreviated as ''Guǎngdōng Lù'' ( zh, first=t, t=廣東路, s=广东路 , labels=no) and ''Guǎngxī Lù ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sacred Caves
Sacred caves and peak sanctuaries are characteristic holy places of ancient Minoan civilization, Minoan Crete. Most scholars agree that sacred caves were used by the Minoans for religious rites, and some for burial. While all peak sanctuaries have clay human figurines, only Idaeon, Trapeza, Crete, Trapeza and Psychro Cave, Psychro have them among the sacred caves. Clay body parts, also called votive body parts, common among peak sanctuaries, appear in no caves with the exception of a bronze leg in Psychro. One author, Tyree (1974), restricts "sacred caves" to those with architectural additions such as "paved areas, partition walls, and low walls surrounding stalagmites", as well as the presence (upon excavation) of "cult implements" of various kinds. Some were "burial caves", used in the Neolithic and Early Minoan periods as secondary burial sites for a community. It is thought that the primary burial site was probably a ''tholos'' beehive tomb in the area, from which remains were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beyul
According to the beliefs of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, Beyul () are hidden valleys often encompassing hundreds of square kilometers, which Padmasambhava blessed as refuges. Tertöns may reveal them from terma at specific and appropriate times. Their locations were kept on scrolls (lamyig or neyig) hidden under rocks and inside caves, monasteries and stupas. They are places where physical and spiritual worlds overlap, and Tantric practice effectiveness increases with multiple perception dimensions. Padmasambhava assigned deities to protect the beyul. Protective forces manifest as snowstorms, mists and snow leopards. Buddhist texts indicate beyul are discovered when the planet is approaching destruction and the world becomes too corrupt for spiritual practice. They describe valleys reminiscent of paradise, which can only be reached with enormous hardship. Pilgrims who travel to these wild and distant places often recount extraordinary experiences similar to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xianren Cave
The Xianren Cave (, ''Xiānréndòng''), together with the nearby Diaotonghuan (, ''Diàotǒnghuán'') rock shelter, is an archaeological site in Dayuan Township (), Wannian County in the Jiangxi province, China and a location of historically important discoveries of prehistoric pottery sherds that bears evidence of early rice cultivation. The cave's name refers to the legendary Chinese enlightened people, the Xian "immortals". The cave is high, wide, and deep. A 2012 publication in the ''Science'' journal announced that the earliest pottery yet known anywhere in the world was found at this site dating by radiocarbon to between 20,000 and 19,000 years before present, at the end of the Last Glacial Period. The carbon 14 datation was established by carefully dating surrounding sediments. Many of the pottery fragments had scorch marks, suggesting that the pottery was used for cooking. These early pottery containers were made well before the invention of agriculture (dated to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sacred Mountains Of China
The Sacred Mountains of China are divided into several groups. The ''Five Great Mountains'' () refers to five of the most renowned mountains in Chinese history, which have been the subjects of imperial pilgrimage by emperors throughout ages. They are associated with the supreme God of Heaven and the five main cosmic deities of traditional Chinese religion. The group associated with Buddhism is referred to as the ''Four Sacred Mountains of Buddhism'' (), and the group associated with Taoism is referred to as the ''Four Sacred Mountains of Taoism'' (). The sacred mountains have all been important destinations for pilgrimage, the Chinese term for pilgrimage () being a shortened version of an expression which means "paying respect to a holy mountain" (). The Five Great Mountains The ''Five Great Mountains'' or ''Wuyue'' are arranged according to the five cardinal directions of Chinese geomancy, which includes the center as a direction. The grouping of the five mountains appear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yungang Grottoes
The Yungang Grottoes (), formerly the Wuzhoushan Grottoes (), are ancient Chinese Buddhist temple grottoes built during the Northern Wei dynasty near the city of Datong, then called Pingcheng, in the province of Shanxi. They are excellent examples of rock-cut architecture and one of the three most famous ancient Buddhist sculptural sites of China. The others are Longmen and Mogao. The site is located about 16 km west of the city of Datong, in the valley of the Shi Li river at the base of the Wuzhou Shan mountains. They are an outstanding example of the Chinese stone carvings from the 5th and 6th centuries. There are 53 major caves, along with 51,000 niches housing the same number of Buddha statues. Additionally, there are around 1,100 minor caves. A Ming dynasty-era fort is still located on top of the cliff housing the Yungang Grottoes. The grottoes were excavated in the south face of a sandstone cliff about 2,600 feet long and 30 to 60 feet high. In 2001, the Yungang Gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mogao Caves
The Mogao Caves, also known as the Thousand Buddha Grottoes or Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, form a system of 500 temples southeast of the center of Dunhuang, an oasis located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road, in Gansu province, China. The caves may also be known as the Dunhuang Caves; however, this term is also used as a collective term to include other Buddhist cave sites in and around the Dunhuang area, such as the Western Thousand Buddha Caves, Eastern Thousand Buddha Caves, Yulin Caves, and Five Temple Caves. The caves contain some of the finest examples of Buddhist art spanning a period of 1,000 years. The first caves were dug out in 366 CE as places of Buddhist meditation and worship; later the caves became a place of pilgrimage, and caves continued to be built at the site until the 14th century. The Mogao Caves are the best known of the China, Chinese Buddhist grottoes and, along with Longmen Grottoes and Yungang Grottoes, are one of the three fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Longmen Grottoes
The Longmen Grottoes () or Longmen Caves are some of the finest examples of Chinese Buddhist art. Housing tens of thousands of statues of Shakyamuni Buddha and his disciples, they are located south of present-day Luoyang in Henan province, China. The images, many once painted, were carved as outside rock reliefs and inside artificial caves excavated from the limestone cliffs of the Xiangshan () and Longmenshan, running east and west. The Yi River () flows northward between them and the area used to be called Yique (). The alternative name of "Dragon's Gate Grottoes" derives from the resemblance of the two hills that check the flow of the Yi River to the typical " Chinese gate towers" that once marked the entrance to Luoyang from the south. There are as many as 100,000 statues within the 2,345 caves, ranging from to in height. The area also contains nearly 2,500 stelae and inscriptions, hence the name "Forest of Ancient Stelae", as well as over sixty Buddhist pagodas. S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Livia Kohn
Livia (Knaul) Kohn (born March 14, 1956) is an emeritus professor of Religion and East Asian Studies at Boston University, specializing in studies of Taoism (or Daoism). Kohn completed her Ph.D. at Bonn University in 1980. She has held academic positions at Kyoto University (1981–1986), University of Michigan (1986–1987), and Boston University (1988–2006). Kohn has authored or edited over 50 books and many articles on Daoism. She has served as an executive editor of Three Pines Press since 2000 and the ''Journal of Daoist Studies'' since 2008. Kohn is a multilingual scholar and has written or translated works in German, English, Chinese, and Japanese. Livia Kohn was cited as a prolific scholar of Daoism early in her career. However, her influence on Western cultural understanding of Daoism and other East Asian religious practices extends beyond the scholarly literature. Kohn practices tai chi, is a certified instructor of yoga and qigong Qigong ()) is a system of coord ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maoshan
The Shangqing School (Chinese:上清), also known as Supreme Clarity, Highest Clarity, or Supreme Purity, is a Daoist movement that began during the aristocracy of the Western Jin dynasty. Shangqing can be translated as either 'Supreme Clarity' or 'Highest Clarity.' The first leader of the school was a woman, Wei Huacun (251-334). According to her Shangqing hagiographers, her devotion to Daoist cultivation so impressed a number of immortals that she received revelations from them 31 volumes of Daoist scriptures which would become the foundation of Shangqing Daoism. Later, Tao Hongjing, a man, (Chinese: 陶弘景) (456－536) structured the theory and practice and compiled the canon. He greatly contributed to the development of the school that took place near the end of the 5th century. The mountain near Nanjing where Tao Hongjing had his retreat, Maoshan (茅山 – fr), today remains the principal seat of the school. Shangqing practice values meditation techniques of visualizatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
