Mount Qingcheng

Located east to Chengdu and Dujiangyan with a distance of 68 kilometers and 10-odd kilometers respectively, Mount Qingcheng dominates the Chengdu plain. It is one of the most famous Taoist holy lands in China and listed together with the neighboring Dujiangyan as the World Heritage site. Mount Qingcheng abounds with historic sites and cultural relics as well as natural beauties. As the name suggests (Qingcheng in Chinese stands for “green city”), Mount Qingcheng enjoys luxuriant vegetations and towering peaks, with the highest peak Laoxiao Summit rising to a height of 1260m.

Mount Qingcheng is long known throughout China for its “secluded elegance”, which means that it enjoys most tranquil beauty among the famous mountains in China. Steps into the temple gate find out the elegance and serenity of all the things, no matter it is natural beauties or historical sites. Temples and pavilions, which are made up of natural materials like bamboos, canes, barks, and roots without any artificial ornaments, half hidden in luxuriant greens, give the showing of a harmonious picture integrating the surrounding hills, rocks, and springs.

Mount Qingcheng witnesses the birth of Chinese Taoism. It’s recorded that Zhang Daoling founded the doctrine of Taoism here in the late Eastern Han Dynasty and the teachings of Taoism have been disseminated widely throughout China since then. Zhang Daoling dispatched his disciples into 24 parishes, which they called Dongtian or Celestial Cave, and took Mount Qingcheng as the headquarters according to a legend. Of all the architectures in the mountain, Celestial Cave of Tianshi(the name given to the spiritual leader of the Taoist religion) and the Hall of Patriarchs are listed as the national key Taoist sites. Thanks to the existence and development of Taoism in Mount Qingcheng in the last 2000 years, especially the mastery and management by the accomplished Taoist priests of past dynasties, the mountain is fully preserved as the ancestral mountain in Taoists’ mind as well as a holy mountain in the secular people’s eyes. The ancient architectures, ruins, as well as historical stories and customs, even the trees, flowers, grasses in the mountain, are all imbued with the influence of the Taoist culture.