Mount Tiantai (Zhejiang)

Overview

About

The Mount Tiantai scenic area in Tiantai County, Taizhou, central Zhejiang, covers 187 km², “divine scenery, the root of Buddhism and Taoism”; the main peak, Huading, is 1,138 m. The Ming traveller Xu Xiake wrote a Diary of a Journey to Mount Tiantai.

It is in the second batch of national parks of China (national scenic areas) named by the State Council in 1988.

Travel tips

Getting there: Tiantai County has a high-speed station (Tiantaishan station on the Hangzhou-Shaoxing-Taizhou line), reachable from Hangzhou and Taizhou; from the station you need a bus or taxi to Guoqing Temple and the scenic areas. Long-distance buses also run from Ningbo and Taizhou to the county town.

Guoqing Temple: it lies north of the county town and is the ancestral temple of the Tiantai school. Inside are the Sui Plum and the pagoda of the monk Yixing, which can be seen on the way.

Stone Bridge Waterfall: it is near Fangguang Temple, where a rock arch spans two hills with a waterfall below. It looks best when the water is high, particularly after spring and summer rain.

Huading: the main peak, Huading Mountain, has Huading Temple and a sunrise platform at the top, with views of sunrise and sea of clouds. It is cold up there and often foggy.

Other sights: Qiongtai Gorge, Hanyan and others are scattered across the county and not close together, so you need a car or a hired vehicle.

Time: Guoqing Temple and the waterfall make a one-day trip; allow two days to climb Huading and see more.

Season: azaleas bloom on Huading in April and May; summer is cool, autumn colour is good, and in winter the ground on Huading may be icy.

Where to stay: the county town and the area near Guoqing Temple have lodging; there is little on Huading Mountain, so book ahead.

Scenery

Its character is “ancient, graceful, strange and secluded”: Spring Dawn at Taoyuan, Rosy Clouds at Chicheng, the Stone Bridge waterfall, the Returning Waves of the Two Streams, Clouds Returning to Huading, Night Moon at Qiongtai, Fishing Boat on Luoxi Stream and Sunset at Hanyan.

The Stone Bridge north-east of Guoqing Temple is a huge rock spanning two hills like a roof beam, with a waterfall plunging beneath it.

Culture

In the Sui dynasty the monk Zhiyi founded here the first Chinese school of Buddhism, the Tiantai school, whose teachings later spread to Japan and Korea. The famous surviving temples are Guoqing, Fangguang and Gaoming; Guoqing, the ancestral temple of the school, is one of the four great temples of China.

Guoqing Temple covers 19,600 m² with four halls (Maitreya, Yuhua, the Great Buddha Hall and Guanyin), five towers (bell, drum, abbot’s, pagoda-side and sutra library), four halls (Miaofa, Anyang, refectory and guest hall), two pavilions (Plum and Clear Heart) and a relics room holding over 2,000 objects. The bronze Shakyamuni in the main hall weighs 13 tonnes; the eighteen arhats beside it are carved in nanmu and gilded, with a fine mural of Guanyin ferrying all beings behind. The plum before the Plum Pavilion is said to have been planted by the fifth patriarch, the “Sui Plum”.

Outside the temple are relics of the Tang monk and astronomer Yixing and of the poet-monks Hanshan, Shide and Fenggan. Tiantai is also the home of the monk Jigong, with a Jigong hall on Chicheng Hill.

The mountain is the ancestral seat of the southern school of Taoism too: in the Eastern Han Ge Xuan founded the Tiantai school, and in the Northern Song the local Zhang Boduan founded the Ziyang school, honoured as the founder of the southern lineage. Tongbai Mountain in the scenic area is the southern school’s ancestral temple and the Yujing Cave on Chicheng the sixth of the ten Taoist “grotto heavens”.

Nearby

Straight-line distances. Search nearby