Mount Gezao阁皂山
- Type
- Daoist Sacred Mountains
- Location
- China · Jiangxi · Zhangshu, Yichun · About 20 km southeast of Zhangshu City; the main peak, Lingyun Peak, is 802 m above sea level
- Coordinates
- 27.96, 115.63 Map ↗
- School
- Lingbao (Numinous Treasure) School, Zhengyi (Orthodox Unity) Daoism
- First built
- Three Kingdoms Wu (tradition: Ge Xuan practised alchemy here) · The Gezao Temple was built in the Tang and granted the title Chongzhen Palace in the Song; together with Mount Longhu and Mount Mao it formed the “Three Mountains of Registers”; one of the Seventy-two Blessed Lands (ranked thirty-third in Du Guangting’s Record of Grotto-Heavens, Blessed Lands, Marchmounts, Rivers and Famous Mountains, thirty-sixth in Sima Chengzhen’s Chart of the Palaces and Bureaus of Heaven and Earth)
- Heritage status
- Mingshui Bridge, Mount Gezao, Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level (2013)National Forest Park
Overview
Mount Gezao is the ancestral court of the Lingbao (Numinous Treasure) School. Tradition holds that Ge Xuan (the Immortal Elder Ge) of Eastern Wu in the Three Kingdoms period cultivated the Dao and refined elixirs here, where he received the Lingbao scriptures and registers, and that his grand-nephew Ge Hong also once resided here. Under Emperor Gaozong of the Tang the Gezao Temple was built by imperial order; in the Song it was successively granted the titles Jingde Temple and Chongzhen Palace, and together with Mount Longhu and Mount Mao it was ranked among the “Three Mountains of Registers,” holding charge of the transmission of the Lingbao registers and forming one of the three great centres of Daoism in Jiangnan under the Song and Yuan. After the Yuan it passed, along with Mount Mao, into Zhengyi Daoism, and it gradually declined under the Ming and Qing. The mountain is one of the Daoist Seventy-two Blessed Lands: Sima Chengzhen’s Chart of the Palaces and Bureaus of Heaven and Earth (in juan 27 of the Seven Slips from the Bookbag of the Clouds) lists it as the thirty-sixth Blessed Land — “Mount Gezao, in Xingan County, Jizhou, governed by the Perfected Guo” — while Du Guangting’s Record of Grotto-Heavens, Blessed Lands, Marchmounts, Rivers and Famous Mountains lists it as the thirty-third Blessed Land, which is the source of the name “the thirty-third Blessed Land under Heaven” used at Zhangshu today; in both works the thirty-third of the (Lesser) Grotto-Heavens is Mount Zigai, and Mount Gezao is not counted among the Grotto-Heavens. Surviving today are the Great Wanshou Chongzhen Palace (rebuilt in the Qing and restored in recent years), the Mingshui Bridge (built in the first year of the Zhenghe era of the Northern Song, 1111, and a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level), Ge Xuan’s Elixir-Refining Well, the Medicine-Washing Pool, and the Danxia Cave. Because of the tradition of Ge Xuan refining elixirs and gathering herbs there, Zhangshu is known as the “Capital of Medicine,” and Daoism on Mount Gezao is closely bound up with the culture of Chinese materia medica.
Highlights
- Great Wanshou Chongzhen Palace
- Mingshui Bridge
- Shrine of Immortal Ge
- Elixir-Refining Well
- Zhangshu, the Capital of Medicine