Anhui · The Mountain of the Bodhisattva Who Stayed
Mount Jiuhua (九华山)
The third of the four mountains Chinese Buddhism holds sacred, in southern Anhui. It belongs to Ksitigarbha, the bodhisattva who vowed to stay out of Buddhahood until the hells are empty, and its claim to him rests on a monk who came here from Korea in the Tang and whose body, it is said, did not decay.
Quick Facts
The Short Version
| What it is | A granite mountain covered in Buddhist monasteries, counted as one of the four sacred mountains of Chinese Buddhism |
|---|---|
| Where | Chizhou, in southern Anhui, not far from Huangshan and reachable from Shanghai or Nanjing in a few hours |
| Whose mountain | Ksitigarbha, who in Chinese is Dizang: the bodhisattva who works on behalf of the dead and of beings in the hells |
| The vow | He is said to have refused Buddhahood until every hell is empty, which is why he is the figure funerals are addressed to |
| Why here | A monk of the Korean royal house is held to have been his manifestation. He lived on this mountain and is buried on it |
| What is unusual | The mountain keeps and venerates the preserved bodies of monks, which is not something the other three sacred mountains are known for |
| The new landmark | A very large gilded standing figure of the bodhisattva on a circular terrace below the mountain, finished this century |
| Time needed | Two days. One is enough for the summit and not for the monasteries |
Why Go
A Korean Monk, and a Vow About Hell
1. The bodhisattva nobody in the West has heard of
Ksitigarbha is not a famous figure outside East Asia and he should be, because his job is the one that stops a Western reader short. A bodhisattva is someone who has qualified to leave the cycle of rebirth and has declined to go until everyone else is out. Ksitigarbha took that further than the rest: the vow attributed to him is that he will not become a Buddha while any hell still holds a being. He works, in other words, in the worst place there is, and has put off his own release indefinitely in order to do it.
The practical consequence is that he is the bodhisattva of the dead. Chinese funerals and memorial rites are addressed to him, families come to his mountain on behalf of relatives who have died, and a substantial part of what happens here is being done for somebody who is not present. That is worth knowing before arriving, because it explains an atmosphere that is noticeably more sober than the compassion-and-petitions mood of Guanyin’s island.
2. The mountain belongs to him because of a Korean prince
The four sacred mountains were assigned to their bodhisattvas over centuries rather than by decree, and each assignment rests on a story. This one rests on a monk named Kim Gyo-gak, said to have been of the royal house of Silla, one of the kingdoms of the Korean peninsula, who crossed to China during the Tang and settled on this mountain to practise. He lived here for decades and died at a great age.
What happened next is the part that fixed the identification. His body, according to the tradition, did not decay, and was taken as evidence that he had been a manifestation of Ksitigarbha. A hall was built over the remains and the mountain became the bodhisattva’s seat in China. It is worth pausing on how international that is: the principal cult site of a bodhisattva in China was established by a Korean, at a period when monks, students and envoys moved around East Asia constantly and the Tang capital was full of foreigners.
The tradition of preservation continued. This mountain is known within China for keeping and venerating the bodies of monks whose remains did not decompose, displayed gilded and seated in their halls. A foreign visitor should decide in advance how they feel about that, because it is not incidental to the place and it is not hidden.
3. What the two halves of this page show
The pictures fall into two groups and the split is real rather than an artefact of what was available. The mountain itself is granite: crags, pines rooted in bare rock, long stone stairways, and small temples built onto shoulders and summits, with a funicular and cable cars for those who would rather not walk. That is the old mountain, and walking it between monasteries is what pilgrims have done here for twelve hundred years.
The other group is the statue, which is recent. A very large gilded standing figure of the bodhisattva holding his staff and jewel now stands on a circular terrace at the end of a long formal approach, below the mountain proper, with plazas and a visitor complex laid out around it. It is on a completely different scale from anything else here and it was built to be. Whether that is a fitting modern offering or an oversized one is a question this page leaves to the visitor; what it will say is that the two halves are genuinely different experiences and a day that includes only one of them has seen half the site.
The catch. This is a working pilgrimage mountain with a heavy domestic following, and the stairways and summit temples fill on weekends and holidays. Almost nothing is explained in English, which matters more here than at a scenic site because the interest is entirely in what things mean. The monasteries are religious houses with rules about access and photography. And the mountain and the statue complex are far enough apart, and different enough in character, that trying to do both plus the summit in one day produces a rushed version of all three.
Orientation
The Village, the Mountain and the Statue
There are three things and they are in different places. A village of monasteries, guesthouses and restaurants sits in a basin partway up the mountain and is where most visitors stay and where the principal halls are, including the one built over the Korean monk’s remains. Above it the mountain rises to summits with temples on them, reached by stone stairways, a funicular and cable cars.
The statue complex is separate, lower down and approached on its own axis, and it takes a couple of hours in its own right. Treating it as a stop on the way in or out rather than as an afterthought at the end of a long day on the summits is the arrangement that works. Staying a night in the village is what makes the rest possible, because the temples at either end of the day are a different place from the temples at noon.
Practical
Things Worth Knowing
Stay in the village
It puts you among the monasteries in the early morning and the evening, which is when they are being used rather than visited.
Decide about the preserved bodies before you go
They are on display in their halls and they are venerated. Knowing that in advance is better than meeting one unprepared.
Walk at least one of the stairways
The funicular and the cable cars save hours, and the stepped paths between the halls are where the mountain actually reveals itself.
Give the statue its own visit
It is a long way from the summits in every sense, and bolting it onto the end of a walking day does neither of them any good.
Timing
When to Go
| Season | The case for | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| April and May | New leaf on the slopes, mild walking weather and the blossom out along the paths | Southern Anhui spring is wet and the summits sit in cloud for days |
| September to November | The clearest air of the year, comfortable climbing and autumn colour in the valleys | The first week of October is a national holiday and the stairways are solid with people |
| June to August | Cooler than the plain below, which is why domestic visitors come up in the school holidays | Hot, humid and thundery, and the school holidays fill the stairways |
| December to March | Quiet, cold and occasionally snowy, with the monasteries at their most withdrawn | Cold at altitude, some services reduced and the paths slippery |
Context
Four Mountains, Four Jobs
Chinese Buddhism laid its sacred geography out as a set of four, one mountain to each of four great bodhisattvas, arranged across the country so that the pattern itself carries the teaching. Wutai in the north belongs to Manjushri and wisdom, Emei in the west to Samantabhadra and practice, Putuo off the east coast to Guanyin and compassion, and this mountain to Ksitigarbha and the dead. Between them they divide the work.
The division explains why the four feel so different from one another despite sharing an architecture and a religion. Guanyin’s island is busy with people asking for things. This mountain is busy with people doing something on behalf of the dead, which is a quieter and heavier kind of errand, and the memorial tablets and the preserved bodies are part of the same logic rather than local colour.
It also explains the international thread. Ksitigarbha’s cult is strong in Korea and Japan as well, the monk who fixed it here was Korean, and East Asian Buddhism moved along the same sea routes as the trade did. A visitor who has seen a Japanese roadside Jizo, the small stone figure in a red bib that stands at crossroads and cemeteries, has already met this bodhisattva without knowing it. This site covers the compassion mountain at Mount Putuo and the practice mountain at Mount Emei.
Nearby
Other Stops on the Same Trip
Spot · about 80 km southeast
Mount Huangshan (黄山)
The granite peaks and cloud seas that most visitors to southern Anhui have actually come for.
Spot · about 110 km southeast
Xidi and Hongcun (西递宏村)
Two preserved merchant villages, and the domestic architecture of the region that paid for the temples.
Spot · about 180 km southwest
Mount Lu (庐山)
Across the border in Jiangxi, and a mountain with an entirely modern history attached to it.
Where to Base
Chizhou (池州)
Chizhou is the prefecture city on the Yangtze that the mountain belongs to, with a station on the fast line down from Nanjing and Hefei. It is a working river city rather than a destination, and its role here is as the point where visitors leave the railway.
For planning, this mountain sits naturally with Huangshan and the old villages rather than on its own, and the three together make a coherent week in southern Anhui. Doing the sacred mountain first and the scenic one afterwards is the better order, because the reverse makes this one look like a smaller Huangshan, which is not what it is.
Experiences
What You Can Actually Do Here
On site · two days
Village, summits, statue
A night among the monasteries, the stairways and summit temples on the full day, and the statue complex on the way out.
On site · one day
The summit and the principal halls
Up by funicular, the summit temples, and the main monasteries in the village on the way down.
Guided · 6 days
Southern Anhui, sacred and secular
This mountain with Huangshan and the merchant villages, read as one region: who had the money, what they built with it and what they were afraid of.
Come for the bodhisattva rather than the view, because the view is better an hour down the road at Huangshan and the bodhisattva is not. This is the mountain of the figure who works in the hells and declined his own release until they are empty, whose cult was fixed here by a Korean monk in the Tang, and whose followers keep and gild the bodies of their dead. Walk at least one stairway, stay a night among the halls, and give the statue its own morning. Then go and look at the peaks next door, which is a different pleasure entirely.
Anhui, With the Meaning Attached
This mountain gets sold as a warm-up for Huangshan, which is exactly backwards: one is scenery and the other is the principal shrine of the bodhisattva of the dead. Tell us your dates and our local team will get you a bed among the monasteries, onto the stairways early, and in front of somebody who can explain what the halls are for.