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Songshan
Located in Dengfeng County of Henan Province, Songshan is
called the Central Mountain of the Five Sacred Mountains. It has 36 peaks and
stretches 60 kilometers, composed of Taishi Mountain and Shaoshi Mountain. The
highest peak is 1494 meters above sea level. The Central Mountain has rich forest resources, some of
which are rare ancient trees with odd figures and literary quotations, such as
the General Cypress in the Songyang Academy, the Fifth-rank Chinese Scholar tree
in the Shaolin Temple, the Han (206BC-220AD) Maidenhair Tree in Fawang Temple,
the Cypress Forest in the Zhongyue Temple, and the Bodhi tree in the Yongtai
Temple, etc. The forest resources of Songshan are praised as “rare treasure” for
their large quantity, antiquity, abundant literary quotation and vivid shapes.
The mountain also boasts a large number of showplaces and
cultural relics. The most famous Shaolin Temple is located here, where Shaolin
monks exercise Qigong, Qinggong and other Shaolin Kong-fu (martial
arts). There are some other temples in the mountain, such as the
Zhongyue Temple, which is nicknamed “the Little Palace”; the Fawang Temple and
the Huishan Temple, the oldest temples extant in China; two earliest and
well-preserved astronomical observatories extant in China; etc.
Songshan abounds in stele carvings, totaling more than
2,000 pieces, left by famous calligraphers like Yan Zhenqing, Su Dongpo, Huang
Tingjian and Mi You, etc. -- Cultural Heritage 1. Zhongyue Temple The Zhongyue Temple is nicknamed “the Little Palace”. The
temple is one of the oldest of its kind in China, originally built in the Qin
Dynasty over 2,200 years ago, and moved to its present site in the Tang
(618-907). Along the center line of the temple lie about 400 constructions of
various kinds including archways, pavilions, terraces, gates, halls, and towers,
as well as many (over 300) tall, gnarled and weather-beaten cypresses, mostly in
the large courtyard. It covers an area of 370,000 square
meters. 2.
Songyang
Academy The Songyang Academy, one of the most famous ancient
academies, is also located here. Celebrities of ancient times like Sima Guang,
Cheng Yi and Fan Zhongyan all gave lectures here. The building of the academy is
old and elegant, but mostly broken. At the west side, there are two high and old
cypresses named Great General and Second General, they are the oldest cypresses
with over 4,000 years of history. 3. Tower of Songyue Temple The Tower of Songyue Temple is the earliest Buddhist
tower existing in China. It was built in the Northern Wei Dynasty (520). It has
15 storeys and a height of over 40 meters. With superb craft, it is the oldest
polygonal tower in China. |
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