Left: This statue of the deity Zhen Wu on Wudang Mountains is considered a holy artifact. Right: A Taoist clad in traditional religious garb cultivates himself at the sacred spot.
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Left: This statue of the deity Zhen Wu on Wudang Mountains is considered a holy artifact. Right: A Taoist clad in traditional religious garb cultivates himself at the sacred spot. |
The legends surrounding Taoist immortal Zhen Wu have shaped Wudang Mountains' culture as much as geology has shaped their topographies.
It was in these majestic alpines that the religious devotee is said to have transformed into a god more than 2,000 years ago.
He was 15 when he rejected his crown as Jing Le's prince and journeyed to what is called Prince Slope to cultivate himself under the sage Zi Qi.
While he hardly missed the court, he desperately missed his parents. After several years, he felt he couldn't bear the separation any longer. So he decided to give up his quest and return to his mother and father.
As he walked down the mountain to leave, he stumbled upon an old woman whetting a metal rod with a stone. She was filing the metal into a point and had worn deep grooves in the rock.
When he asked her what she was doing, she told him she was grinding the large metal shaft into a needle.
What Zhen Wu didn't know was that Zi Qi had transformed himself and staged the scene to teach his student a lesson: Everything is a long, difficult process, requiring great patience and persistence.
Zhen Wu returned to the slope with reinvigorated zeal for his spiritual refinement.
Because of this fable, the bluff is also known as the "Returning to Cultivation Cliff".
Modern pilgrims still sojourn to this place to reaffirm their spiritual devotion.
While Zhen Wu's legacy begins at Prince Slope, it ends at South Cliff.
It was here that he is said to have finally attained immortality.
After Zhen Wu had entered his 42nd year of self-cultivation on Wudang Mountains, the Jade Emperor (the supreme Taoist deity) sent a tantalizing enchantress to seduce him.
When Zhen Wu resisted her wooing, the disgraced maiden leapt from the South Cliff.
Zhen Wu was mortified. Crushed by despair, he too jumped off the escarpment. But rather than plunge to his immediate death, he floated up to heaven to enjoy eternal life.
South Cliff is acclaimed as the most magnificent of Wudang's 36 peaks.
Ming Emperor Zhu Di, who coopted Taoism to legitimize his reign, ordered the construction of several sacred structures on this alp.
Visitors can also see Zhen Wu Palace, which was destroyed by a blaze in 1910 and rebuilt five years ago.
The palace contains Zhen Wu's sole drinking source, the Ganlujing (Sweet Dew Well). He ate only wild fruits and vegetables, and drank only from this fount.
Today, the palace also accommodates a teahouse, which uses water from the sanctified well and serves tea freshly harvested from the mountainside.
On the crag's other side stand several stone Ming-era temples and palaces, which have never been renovated.
Beyond these, the perilous Dragon Head Incense Burner juts out of the precipice.
A rocky protrusion was chiseled into the shape of an ornate dragon's head with an incense urn perched atop its snout during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
One wrong step on the 30-cm-wide, 2.9-m-long platform means a sheer drop for several hundred meters. Many pilgrims have died over the centuries while venturing out on the slender extension to burn incense.
The burner is located near the Prince Sleeping Bed. Legend has it that Zi Qi gave Zhen Wu a cane to aid his slumber. When Zhen Wu transformed into a deity, the cane too transformed - into an ornately carved wooden bed.
Some among the devout might say that actually seeing the bed will put to rest any disbelief about the myth behind the man Zhen Wu.
But skeptics and true believers who make the journey to Wudang will agree: It's a place where the local legends - true or not - are as grand as the mountains that host them.