Mount Heng, also known by its Chinese name Hengshan, is a mountain in north-central China's

Shanxi Province Shanxi (; ; Chinese postal romanization, formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is ...

, known as the northern mountain of the Five Great Mountains of China. Heng Shan in Shanxi Province is sometimes known as the Northern Heng Shan, and the one in Hunan Province as Southern Heng Shan. Both mountains have the same pronunciation in Chinese, and the Southern Heng Shan is also one of the Five Sacred Mountains.

History

Like the other mountains in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

with strong Taoist presence, Heng Shan has been considered a sacred mountain since the

Zhou Dynasty The Zhou dynasty ( ; Old Chinese ( B&S): *''tiw'') was a royal dynasty of China that followed the Shang dynasty. Having lasted 789 years, the Zhou dynasty was the longest dynastic regime in Chinese history. The military control of China by th ...

. Due to its northerly location, often under control of non-Chinese nations, the mountain has a weaker history of pilgrimage than its four fellows. Indeed, to this day it is the least-visited and least-developed of the five, also the smallest in area. Because of this, Hengshan is not nearly as religiously important in China as the other Taoist mountains.Goosseart (2008), p. 481. But as a further consequence, it is also less commercialized—there are no hotels on the mountain, for instance. The main peak is a lovely hike of around three hours round trip from the parking lot (a few miles up the mountain from where you buy the ticket), with the summit covered in fragrant lilac blossoms in June, and temples set into the cliffs. The slopes are largely covered with hemlocks, pines, elm, fir, poplar, and hawthorn, in the barer areas.

Temples

During the

Han Dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...

, a temple called the

Shrine of the Northern Peak A shrine ( la, scrinium "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred or holy space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon, or similar figure of respect, wherein they ar ...

(Beiyue Miao), dedicated to the mountain god was built on Hengshan's slopes. While periodically destroyed and rebuilt, this temple has an uninterrupted history from Han times to the present day. During times of occupation by non-Han Chinese people, worship to Hengshan was done at the Beiyue Temple in

Quyang Quyang County () is under the administration of Baoding City, Hebei province, China. The county is famous for its stone carvings, many of which are exported abroad. The Beiyue Temple is located in Quyang city. Administrative divisions Towns: * He ...

. Another temple of the area is the famous

Hanging Temple The Hanging Temple, also Hengshan Hanging Temple, Hanging Monastery or Xuankong Temple () is a temple built into a cliff ( above the ground) near Mount Heng in Hunyuan County, Datong City, Shanxi Province, China. The closest city is Datong, to ...

, built more than 1,500 years ago into a cliff near the Mount.

References

Notes

Sources

*Goossaert, Vincent. "Hengshan." in Fabrizio Pregadio, ed., The Encyclopedia of Taoism (London: Routledge, 2008), 481–482. {{DEFAULTSORT:Heng, Mount Mountains of Shanxi Sacred Mountains of China Two-thousanders of Asia Mount Heng Mount Heng Mount Heng