Flaming Mountains

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Flaming Mountains
The Flaming Mountains

The Flaming Mountains (Chinese: 火焰山; pinyin: huǒyànshān) are barren, eroded, red sandstone hills in the Tian Shan Mountain range in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China. They lie near the northern rim of the Taklamakan Desert and east of the city of Turpan. Their striking gullies and trenches have been etched by years of volcanic activity that caused molten lava to course down the mountainsides, giving the mountains a flaming appearance at certain times of the day. The mountains are 98 kilometers (61 mi) long and 9 kilometers (5.6 mi) wide and cross the Tarim Basin from east to west. The average height of the Flaming Mountains is 500 meters (1640 ft). The mountain climate is harsh and the temperature is extremely hot in the summer, the hottest spot in China.[1]

The Tien Shan with the Flaming Mountains at bottom
The Tien Shan with the Flaming Mountains at bottom

Contents

[edit] Silk route

Bezeklik caves on gorge cliffs, under the Flaming Mountains
Bezeklik caves on gorge cliffs, under the Flaming Mountains

In ancient times, the Taklamakan Desert was avoided by merchant traders transversing the Silk Route in southeast Asia and oasis towns such as Gaochang, built at the foot of the Flaming Mountains on the desert's rim near an important mountain pass, became respite stops for traveling merchant traders. Buddhist missionaries often accompanied traders on busy international trading routes and during the times trade boomed on the Silk Route, Buddhist monasteries and temples were built in the busy trading centers and in nearby remote mountain spots.[2][3]

The Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves site lies in a gorge under the cliffs of the Flaming Mountains near the pass by Gaochang. It is a complex of seventy Buddhist cave grottoes dating from the 5th to the 9th centuries, many with thousands of murals of Buddha.[4][5]

[edit] Literary fame

The Flaming Mountains received their name from a fantasy account of a Buddhist monk, accompanied by a Monkey King with magical powers, who runs into a wall of flames on his pilgrimage to India in the popular 16th century novel, Journey to the West, by Ming Dynasty writer, Wu Cheng'en.[3] The novel is an embellished description of the monk Xuanzang who traveled to India in 627 CE to obtain Buddhist scriptures and went through a pass in the Tien Shan after leaving Gaochang.[6]

[edit] Legends

According to an old Han legend, the Monkey King created a disturbance in the heavens and knocked over a kiln, causing embers to fall from the sky to the place where the Flaming Mountains are now. In an Uigur legend, a dragon lived in the Tianshan Mountains. Because the dragon ate little children, an Uigur hero slew the dragon and cut it into eight pieces. The dragon's blood turned into a scarlet mountain of blood and the eight pieces became the eight valleys in the Flaming Mountains.[7]

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Flaming Mountain, Turpan. chinahighlights.com. Retrieved on 2007-09-19.
  2. ^ Keay, John (2000). India: A History. New York: Grove Press, pp. 103, 124—27. ISBN 0802137970. 
  3. ^ a b Ebrey, Patricia (2006). The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge University Press, pp. 106–7, 202. ISBN 0-521-43519-X. 
  4. ^ Bizaklik Thousand Buddha Caves. showcaves.com. Retrieved on 2007-09-19.
  5. ^ Bizaklik Thousand Buddha Caves. travelchinaguide. Retrieved on 2007-09-19.
  6. ^ The Third Cross-Strait Conference — Post-conference Tour to the Flaming Mountains. University of Massachusetts.edu. Retrieved on 2007-09-18.
  7. ^ The Flaming Mountains (Huo Yan Shan). travelchinaguide.com. Retrieved on 2007-09-21.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: