Mount Wutai is composed of ancient crystalline rocks, with a deep cut in the north and five towering peaks. The peaks are as flat as a platform, so it is called Wutai: Wanghai Peak in the East, Hanging Moon Peak in the West, Jinxiu Peak in the South, and Ye Dou Peak in the North. , Zhongtai Cuiyan Peak.
Wutai Mountain was not originally called Wutai Mountain, but Zifu Mountain, also known as Wufeng Mountain Dojo. This was once a place for Taoist priests to practice. In the 11th year of Yongping in the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 68), the eminent monks Kasyapa Mateng and Zhu Falan from Tianzhu (today's India) came to the Wufeng Mountain area from the White Horse Temple in Luoyang. They thought this was the dojo where Manjushri Bodhisattva gave lectures, so they wanted to come here. Build a temple to worship Manjushri Bodhisattva.
But the Taoist priests here did not agree. In the end, Emperor Ming of the Han Dynasty presided over a competition between the Taoist priests and two eminent monks at the White Horse Temple in Luoyang, and the two eminent monks won. Since then, the Buddhist community has obtained the right to build Buddhist temples in Taihuai Town. The first temple built is today's Xiantong Temple.
Since then, after construction and expansion in various dynasties, the number of temples centered in Taihuai Town reached a maximum of more than 360, and more than 100 temples still remain today. Therefore, Mount Wutai ranks first among the four famous Buddhist mountains in the country because of its long history and large scale of Buddhist temples.
Extended information:
It is said that Wutai was originally the territory of Taoism. In the "Tao Jing", Wutai Mountain is called Zifu Mountain, and the Zifu Temple was once built. "Qingliang Mountain Chronicles" states that when the Buddhist Manjusri Bodhisattva first came to China, he lived in a stone basin cave, and the stone basin was in the Taoist Xuanzhen Temple. This shows that Mount Wutai was inhabited by Taoists at that time.
When Buddhism was first introduced to our country, only a few people followed it. In the second year BC, Yi Cun, the envoy of the king of the Dayuezhi Kingdom (a minority originally living in the Ili River Basin in western Xinjiang, China, and a country established after migrating westward to Central Asia) came to Chang'an (now Xi'an), the capital of China at that time, and he dictated The Buddhist scriptures were given to a Ph.D. disciple named Lu Jing. This is the earliest record of the introduction of Buddhism to China in Chinese history books.
The introduction of Buddhism to Wutai Mountain is generally believed to have begun in the Eastern Han Dynasty. According to historical records, in December of the 10th year of Yongping (AD 67), the envoy sent by Emperor Ming of the Han Dynasty to the Western Regions to seek Dharma came to Luoyang with two eminent Indian monks, She Moteng and Zhu Falan. In the 11th year of Yongping, a monastery was built south of the imperial road outside Yongmen in the west of Luoyang City to accommodate these two Indian monks.
Baidu Encyclopedia-Wutai Mountain