Mount Wutai as a World Heritage Site

by Danny Fisher

“Mount Wutai.” Photo by Baptiste Marcel, via Shambhala Sun Space.
Over at Shambhala Sun Space, Jesse P. Hiltz contemplates the possibilities and especially the problematics of naming China’s Mount Wutai as a U.N. World Heritage Site. He writes:

    Nestled in Northeastern China, Mount Wutai has witnessed the building of Buddhist temples since the first century C.E. and it is home to some of China’s old existing wooden buildings. Some of which have stood since 900 C.E.

    Consisting of five continuous mountains with flattened peaks, the Sacred Mountain’s altitudes rise between 2,500 and 3,000 meters above the sea. It is here, many believe, that the bodhisattva manifests himself; as a monk, a pilgrim, a wisp of cloud.

    In Spain, on Friday, June 26th, nearly two millennia of Buddhist history has convinced the UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee to name Wutai as a World Heritage Site, given that it is home to 68 temples, 150 towers, 146,000 sculptures.

    But alas, it was not qualified to be a world natural landscape.

Read the rest here.

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