Jiaoshan Mountain
By admin on 2015-01-12

Jiaoshan Mountain (jiāo shān 焦山), located in the northwest of Zhenjiang City (zhèn jiāng shì 镇江市), is famous for its quietness and primitive simplicity. There are luxurious plants growing there, which make the mountain like a floating jade in the river. It is the only tourism island that is surrounded by water in the Yangtze River. It is crowned as the is regarded as the Floating Jade in the Yangtze River (jiāng zhōng fú yù 江中浮玉). The mountain is 71 meters high, with a perimeter of more than 2000 meters. Its beautiful sight has attracted tourists from home and abroad.

Besides its beautiful scenery, the cultural relics in Jiaoshan Mountain make it more unique. The inscriptions on precipices in Jiaoshan Mountain are known to everyone. The Forest of Steles (bēi lín 碑林) at the foot of the Jiaoshan Mountain is the largest in the south region of the Yangtze River, second to the forest of steles in ancient city Xi’an. Therefore, the Jiaoshan Mountain is crowned as the Mountain of Calligraphy (shū fǎ shān 书法山).

Moreover, there are large quantities of temples, elegant pavilions, terraces and towers in Jiaoshan Mountain. Every temple has famous monks, who can recite poems and good at lyre-playing, chess, calligraphy and painting. There was once a Buddhist college in Jiaoshan Mountain, which attracts many Buddhist to be initiated into monkhood here. Thus the mountain is also regarded as the cultural mountain (wén huà shān 文化山). The Huayan Pavilion (huá yán gé 华严阁), Wenchang Pavilion (wén chāng gé 文昌阁), Imperial Stele Pavilion (yù bēi tíng 御碑亭), Loquat Garden (pí pá yuán 枇杷园), Butterfly Hall (hú dié tīng 蝴蝶厅) etc. dotted in the forests make the mountain much more beautiful scenery. There is a saying goes that the temple and pavilions are wrapped in the Jiaoshan Mountain.

There are valuable Four Ancients in Jiaoshan Mountain, namely the ancient temple---- Dinghui Temple (dìng huì sì 定慧寺), which was constructed in the Ming Dynasty (míng cháo 明朝) with green tiles and red walls, beautiful and elegant; ancient trees---- cypress of six dynasties (liù cháo 六朝), pagoda tree of Song Dynasty (sòng cháo 宋朝) and the ginkgo of Ming Dynasty (míng cháo 明朝), which standing in front or at bake of the temple, makes the temple more mysterious; the ancient tablets and ancient inscriptions on precipices.