Lesser Grotto 23: Mount Jiuyi小洞天二十三 九嶷山洞（朝真太虚天）
- Type
- Grotto-Heavens and Blessed Lands
- Location
- China · Hunan · Ningyuan, Yongzhou · Mount Jiuyi (site of the Mausoleum of Emperor Shun)
- Coordinates
- 25.35, 112.05 Map ↗
- First built
- Same as above · The Grotto-Heavens and Blessed Lands system took shape in the Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties, with the list of names fixed in the Tang by Sima Chengzhen and Du Guangting; the present-day location is a scholarly inference.
Overview
The twenty-third of the Thirty-six Lesser Grotto-Heavens, titled the “Heaven of Audience with the Perfected in Great Emptiness,” governed by the Immortal Yan Zhenqing. Identified with present-day Mount Jiuyi in Ningyuan, Hunan, the burial place of Emperor Shun; the mountain has the Temple of Emperor Shun and Zixia Cave, and has been a site of sacrifice to Shun through successive dynasties, honored by Daoism as a Grotto-Heaven.