9th Grotto-Heaven: Mount Linwu第九 林屋山洞（左神幽虚之天）
- Type
- Grotto-Heavens and Blessed Lands
- Location
- China · Jiangsu · Wuzhong, Suzhou · Linwu Cave, Xishan Island (Jinting township), Lake Tai
- Coordinates
- 31.08, 120.28 Map ↗
- First built
- Sima Chengzhen, Chart of the Palaces and Bureaus of Heaven and Earth (during the Kaiyuan era of the Tang); Du Guangting, Record of Grotto-Heavens, Blessed Lands, Marchmounts, Rivers and Famous Mountains (end of the Tang) · The Grotto-Heavens and Blessed Lands system took shape in the Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties; the roster of names was fixed in the Tang by Sima Chengzhen and Du Guangting. Present-day identifications are conjectural.
Overview
The ninth of the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens, four hundred li in circumference and titled the "Heaven of the Left Spirits and Dark Emptiness" (also written "Dragon Spirits and Dark Emptiness"), governed by the Perfected of the Northern Marchmount. Today it is the Linwu Cave on Xishan Island in Lake Tai, Suzhou, a limestone karst cave; Yu the Great is said to have hidden books here, and in the 1980s Tang- and Song-dynasty Daoist dragon-tablet offerings — gold dragons and jade tablets used in "casting dragons" rites — were excavated here, providing important archaeological evidence for grotto-heaven belief.