Mount Emei

Template:Short description Template:Redirect Template:Redirect Template:For Template:Infobox mountain Template:Infobox Chinese Template:Chinese Buddhism Template:Chinese martial arts Mount Emei (Template:IPAc-cmn; Template:Lang-zh), alternatively Mount Omei, is a Template:Convert mountain in Sichuan Province, China, and is the highest of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains of China.<ref name="Hayes"/> Mount Emei sits at the western rim of the Sichuan Basin. The mountains west of it are known as Daxiangling.<ref>E.g., 实用中国地图集 (Shiyong Zhongguo Dituji, "Practical Atlas of China"), 2008, Template:ISBN; map of Sichuan on pp. 142–143</ref> A large surrounding area of countryside is geologically known as the Permian Emeishan Large Igneous Province, a large igneous province generated by the Emeishan Traps volcanic eruptions during the Permian Period.

Administratively, Mount Emei is located near the county-level city of the same name (Emeishan City), which is in turn part of the prefecture-level city of Leshan. It was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.<ref name="unesco">Template:Cite web</ref>

Name

Emei in Chinese means "moth-browed".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Relevance to Buddhism

Chinese people offer burning sandalwood near the mountain to send their "prayers to heaven".<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref>

As a sacred mountain

Mount Emei is one of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains of China, and is traditionally regarded as the bodhimaṇḍa, or place of enlightenment, of the Bodhisattva Puxian (Template:Lang; Samantabhadra).

Sources of the 16th and 17th centuries allude to the practice of martial arts in the monasteries of Mount Emei,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> which made the earliest extant reference to the Shaolin Monastery as the place of origin of Chinese martial arts.<ref>Template:Cite journal.</ref>

Chinese Buddhist pilgrims regularly travel to the mountain.<ref name=":0" />

Buddhist architecture on Emei

This is the location of the first Buddhist temple built in China in the 1st century CE.<ref name="unesco"/> The site has seventy-six Buddhist monasteries of the Ming and Qing dynasties, most of them located near the mountain top. The monasteries demonstrate a flexible architectural style that adapts to the landscape. Some, such as the halls of Baoguosi, are built on terraces of varying levels, while others, including the structures of Leiyinsi, are on raised stilts. Here the fixed plans of Buddhist monasteries of earlier periods were modified or ignored in order to make full use of the natural scenery. The buildings of Qingyinge are laid out in an irregular plot on the narrow piece of land between the Black Dragon River and the White Dragon River. The site is large and the winding footpath is Template:Convert long, taking several days to walk.<ref name="sun">Template:Cite book</ref>

Cable cars ease the ascent to the two temples at Jinding (3,077 m), an hour's hike from the mountain's peak.<ref name=Hayes>Hayes, Holly (2009) Emei Shan, Sacred Destinations. Updated 24 July 2009.</ref><ref name=Gluckman>Gluckman, Ron (2002). Getting to the Top, Silk Road, December 2002. Hong Kong; Dragon Airlines.</ref>

Jinding is an important attraction of Mount Emei

Climate

The summit of Mount Emei has an alpine subarctic climate (Köppen Dwc), with long, cold (but not severely so) winters, and short, cool summers. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from Template:Convert in January to Template:Convert in July, and the annual mean is Template:Convert. Precipitation is common year-round (occurring on more than 250 days), but due to the influence of the monsoon, rainfall is especially heavy in summer, and more than 70% of the annual total occurs from June to September.

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Indigenous animals

There are nearly 400 total species of animals, invertebrates and plants native to the mountain. There are at least six snake species native to the region, including the Chinese slug snake, Mandarin ratsnake, mountain water snake, Peters' odd-scaled snake, plus some potently venomous species, such as the Chinese green tree viper, the brown spotted pitviper and the Taiwan mountain pitviper.

Visitors to Mount Emei will likely see dozens of Tibetan macaques, which can often be viewed taking food from tourists. A famously well-fed, one-armed, elderly female macaque named Xing Xing has millions of views on YouTube, seemingly showing the macaques’ complete disdain for the hordes of tourists who are often offering them food directly in their faces. It seems that only one elderly woman who lives on the mountain, and her son, are able to be close to Xing Xing, to feed and pet her. Xing Xing appears to consider the woman her best friend, while shunning the offers of food from strangers. If tourists persist in holding food in the monkeys’ faces, they will aggressively grab at the person’s clothing and stare at them, and not let go. If the person continues to irritate the macaque, they are very easily angered and prone to bite. Still, local merchants sell nuts and other foods for the tourists to attempt to feed the monkeys.

Other local animals include lizards, such as the Indian forest skink and the lacerta Takydromus intermedius, the frogs Rana adenopleura and Vibrissaphora liui, and a giant, half-metre long earthworm species, Pheretima praepinguis.

Flora

Mount Emei is known for its high level of endemism, and approximately 200 plant species have been described as endemic to the area. One example is Abies fabri, a rare species of fir tree.Template:Cn