Fengdu Ghost City (appendix)丰都名山（鬼城，附）
- Type
- Temples and Abbeys (Gongguan)
- Location
- China · Chongqing · Fengdu, Chongqing · Mingshan Town, Fengdu County, on the north bank of the Yangtze
- Coordinates
- 29.87, 107.73 Map ↗
- First built
- Eastern Han (traditionally where Yin Changsheng and Wang Fangping cultivated the Dao) · The two immortals Yin and Wang were conflated into 'Yinwang'; from the Tang and Song onward the site developed into a center of underworld belief, with Ming–Qing temple complexes restored from the 1980s
- Heritage status
- Chongqing Municipal Cultural Heritage Site (including the Hall of the Son of Heaven)
Overview
Mount Mingshan in Fengdu, also called Mount Pingdu, is known in Daoism as the 'Blessed Land of Pingdu,' one of the Seventy-two Blessed Lands. Tradition holds that Yin Changsheng and Wang Fangping successively cultivated the Dao here in the Eastern Han and attained immortality; later generations conflated the two surnames Yin and Wang into 'Kings of the Underworld' (Yinwang), and from the Tang and Song onward Fengdu came to be regarded as the seat of the underworld administration, giving rise to a whole complex of 'Ghost City' temples including the Hall of the Son of Heaven, the Bridge of Helplessness, the Ghost Gate Pass, the Yellow Springs Road, and the Eighteen Levels of Hell, its pantheon merging the Daoist cult of the Emperor of Fengdu, Buddhist notions of hell, and folk legend. Most of the Ming- and Qing-dynasty temples were destroyed by war or in connection with the Three Gorges project, and restoration began in the 1980s; the site is now a National AAAA-rated scenic area. This entry serves as an appendix on Daoist underworld belief and folk custom.
Highlights
- Hall of the Son of Heaven
- Bridge of Helplessness
- Blessed Land of Pingdu
- Legend of Yin Changsheng and Wang Fangping