Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Penglai Mountain

Encyclopedia : P : PE : PEN : Penglai Mountain


In China, the mystical Penglai Mountain (蓬萊山) is often said to be the base for the Eight Immortals, or at least where they travel to have a banquet. Supposedly, everything on the mountain seems white, while its palaces are made from gold and platinum, and jeweleries grow on trees. The fruits on the mountain are said to be the elixir of life; because of this, Qin Shi Huang made several attempts to find the island, to no avail.

The legend also passed into Japan, where it took shape as the Legend of Horai.

Location

According to Shan Hai Jing, the mountain is said to be on an island in the eastern end of Bohai Sea, along with four other islands where immortals lived, called Fangzhang (方丈), Yingzhou (瀛州), Daiyu (岱輿), and Yuanjiao (員嬌).

Though a Penglai City exists in Shandong, China, whether or not the city was the actual spot as described in the legends is unknown. The city, however, prides itself for the legend, and started a saying that a certain scenic region in the city was the arrival points of the Immortals. Others claim that the mountain can be seen in form of the frequent mirages at sea that the city is famous for.

Another theory by Chuyi (楚義) of Later Zhou Dynasty puts the fabled island as Japan, while Penglai Mountain is Mount Fuji.

See also

 


From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: