Mount Emei (; zh, c=峨眉山, p=Éméi shān, O2-mei2 shan1), alternatively Mount Omei, is a

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher t ...

Sichuan Province Sichuan is a Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capita ...

, China, and is the highest of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains of China. Mount Emei sits at the western rim of the

Sichuan Basin The Sichuan Basin (), formerly transliterated as the Szechwan Basin, sometimes called the Red Basin, is a lowland region in southwestern China. It is surrounded by mountains on all sides and is drained by the upper Yangtze River and its tributar ...

. The mountains west of it are known as Daxiangling. A large surrounding area of countryside is geologically known as the Permian Emeishan Large Igneous Province, a

large igneous province A large igneous province (LIP) is an extremely large accumulation of igneous rocks, including intrusive ( sills, dikes) and extrusive (lava flows, tephra deposits), arising when magma travels through the crust towards the surface. The format ...

generated by the

Emeishan Traps The Emeishan Traps constitute a flood basalt volcanic province, or large igneous province, in south-western China, centred in Sichuan province. It is sometimes referred to as the Permian Emeishan Large Igneous Province or Emeishan Flood Basalts. Li ...

volcanic eruptions during the

Permian Period The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years, from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.902 Mya. It is the s ...

. Administratively, Mount Emei is located near the

county-level city A county-level city () is a County-level divisions of China, county-level administrative division of the China, People's Republic of China. County-level cities have judiciary, judicial but no legislature, legislative rights over their own local or ...

of the same name ( Emeishan City), which is in turn part of the

prefecture-level city A prefecture-level city () or prefectural city is an administrative division of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC), ranking below a province of China, province and above a Counties of the People's Republic of China, county in China's ...

Leshan Leshan, formerly known as Jiading and Jiazhou, is a prefecture-level city located at the confluence of the Dadu River, Dadu and Min River (Sichuan), Min rivers, on the southwestern fringe of the Sichuan Basin in southern Sichuan, about from the ...

. It was made a

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

in 1996.

Name

Emei means "moth-browed".

Relevance to Buddhism

Chinese people offer burning sandalwood near the mountain to send their "prayers to heaven".

As a sacred mountain

Mount Emei is one of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains of China, and is traditionally regarded as the

bodhimaṇḍa Bodhimaṇḍa (Sanskrit and Pali) or daochang (; J. dōjō; T. byang chub snying po) is a term used in Buddhism meaning the "seat of awakening" or "platform of enlightenment". According to Haribhadra (Buddhist philosopher), Haribhadra, it is " ...

, or place of enlightenment, of the

Bodhisattva In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a person who has attained, or is striving towards, '' bodhi'' ('awakening', 'enlightenment') or Buddhahood. Often, the term specifically refers to a person who forgoes or delays personal nirvana or ''bodhi'' in ...

Samantabhadra. Samantabhadra is known in

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

as Pǔxián Púsà (). Sources of the 16th and 17th centuries allude to the practice of

martial arts Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defence; military and law enforcement applications; combat sport, competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; ...

in the monasteries of Mount Emei, which made the earliest extant reference to the Shaolin Monastery as the place of origin of Chinese martial arts.. Chinese Buddhist

pilgrim The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as ...

s regularly travel to the mountain.

Buddhist architecture on Emei

This is the location of the first

Buddhist temple A Buddhist temple or Buddhist monastery is the place of worship for Buddhism, Buddhists, the followers of Buddhism. They include the structures called vihara, chaitya, stupa, wat, khurul and pagoda in different regions and languages. Temples in B ...

built in China in the 1st century CE. The site has seventy-six Buddhist monasteries of the Ming and

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

dynasties, most of them located near the mountain top. The monasteries demonstrate a flexible architectural style that adapts to the landscape. Some, such as the halls of Baoguosi, are built on terraces of varying levels, while others, including the structures of Leiyinsi, are on raised stilts. Here the fixed plans of Buddhist monasteries of earlier periods were modified or ignored in order to make full use of the natural scenery. The buildings of Qingyinge are laid out in an irregular plot on the narrow piece of land between the Black Dragon River and the White Dragon River. The site is large and the winding footpath is long, taking several days to walk. Cable cars ease the ascent to the two temples at

Jinding The Jinding (), elevation , is the main peak of Mount Emei, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Sichuan, China. It is also a common name for the Buddhist Huazang Temple () built on the summit. Jinding is the highest Buddhist temple in National Key ...

(3,077 m), an hour's hike from the mountain's peak.Hayes, Holly (2009
Emei Shan
Sacred Destinations. Updated 24 July 2009.Gluckman, Ron (2002)

''Silk Road'', December 2002. Hong Kong; Dragon Airlines.

Climate

The summit of Mount Emei has an alpine

subarctic climate The subarctic climate (also called subpolar climate, or boreal climate) is a continental climate with long, cold (often very cold) winters, and short, warm to cool summers. It is found on large landmasses, often away from the moderating effects of ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...

''Dwc''), with long, cold (but not severely so) winters, and short, cool summers. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from in January to in July, and the annual mean is . Precipitation is common year-round (occurring on more than 250 days), but due to the influence of the

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in Atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annu ...

, rainfall is especially heavy in summer, and more than 70% of the annual total occurs from June to September.

Indigenous animals

There are nearly 400 total species of animals, invertebrates and plants native to the mountain. There are at least six snake species native to the region, including th
Chinese slug snake
Mandarin ratsnake, mountain water snake, Peters' odd-scaled snake, plus some potently

venomous Venom or zootoxin is a type of toxin produced by an animal that is actively delivered through a wound by means of a bite, sting, or similar action. The toxin is delivered through a specially evolved ''venom apparatus'', such as fangs or a sti ...

species, such as the Chinese green tree viper, the brown spotted pitviper and th
Taiwan mountain pitviper
Visitors to Mount Emei will likely see dozens of Tibetan macaques, which can often be viewed taking food from tourists. A famously well-fed, one-armed, elderly female macaque name
Xing Xing
has millions of views on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

, seemingly showing the macaques’ complete disdain for the hordes of tourists who are often offering them food directly in their faces. It seems that only one elderly woman who lives on the mountain, and her son, are able to be close to Xing Xing, to feed and pet her. Xing Xing appears to consider the woman her best friend, while shunning the offers of food from strangers. If tourists persist in holding food in the monkeys’ faces, they will aggressively grab at the person’s clothing and stare at them, and not let go. If the person continues to irritate the macaque, they are very easily angered and prone to bite. Still, local merchants sell nuts and other foods for the tourists to attempt to feed the monkeys. Other local animals include lizards, such as the Indian forest skink and the lacerta '' Takydromus intermedius'', the frogs '' Rana adenopleura'' and '' Vibrissaphora liui'', and a giant, half-metre long

earthworm An earthworm is a soil-dwelling terrestrial invertebrate that belongs to the phylum Annelida. The term is the common name for the largest members of the class (or subclass, depending on the author) Oligochaeta. In classical systems, they we ...

species, '' Pheretima praepinguis''.

Flora

Mount Emei is known for its high level of

endemism Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

and approximately 200 plant species in various plant families have been described from this mountain. A rare species of Fir tree is endemic to this mountain it is Abies fabri. Golden Top of Mount Emei

Gallery

File:峨眉山风景区 Mount Emei Scenic Area 06.jpg, Wanfoding File:Mount Emei pic 3.jpg, A temple at the Golden Summit File:Massive golden buddha on the sumit of Eimei Shan.jpg, Massive statue of Samantabhadra at the summit of Mount Emei File:Baoguosi.jpg, Baoguo Temple, a Buddhist temple File:报国寺弥勒殿.JPG, Buddhist temple at Mount Emei File:CrystalStreamOverpass2.jpg, Wooden bridgewalk over the Crystal Stream, western slopes File:MacaqueEmeishan.jpg,

Macaque The macaques () constitute a genus (''Macaca'') of gregarious Old World monkeys of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. The 23 species of macaques inhabit ranges throughout Asia, North Africa, and Europe (in Gibraltar). Macaques are principally f ...

indigenous to the region File:Sunrise at Eimei Shan.jpg, Sunrise over Mount Emei File:Sunrise over clouded sea on sumit of Eimei Shan.jpg, Sunrise over a sea of clouds at Mount Emei File:Guangfu pavilion at Mount Emei.JPG, Guangfu pavilion, with summit visible in background File:Elephant statues in the fog on the steps of the temple atop Mount Emei.jpg, Elephant statues on the steps leading to the statue of Samantabhadra File:Mount emei tour.jpg, alt=mount emei travel guide, Monkeys of Mount Emei File:在峨秀湖远望峨眉山 Mount Emei 1.jpg, Mount Emei and Exiu Lake File:在峨秀湖远望峨眉山 Mount Emei 2.jpg, Mount Emei and Exiu Lake

References

External links

Religion and the environment in China, 中国的宗教与环境 - chinadialogue article

Mount Emei, including Leshan Giant Buddha, Scenic Area: official Unesco site
{{authority control Buddhist grottoes in China Emei National parks of China World Heritage Sites in China Chinese architectural history Emei Tourist attractions in Leshan Buddhism in Sichuan Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Sichuan Buddhist sites in China Emei