The Holy Mount Emei & Buddhist Temples

  Updated on 2022-02-01 Mount Emei Shan, China

The Mount Emei Shan (峨眉山) in the small town of Emei Shan (峨眉山市), or Leshan (乐山市) in Sichuan province, only 1-hour drive away from the provincial city Chengdu, is a holy mountain renowned for centuries and still sits as a highly regarded religious place today. It is also considered as the one of the earliest homes of Han Buddhism. The calmness and holiness atmosphere prevails across the entire little town from its architecture to the living of its people. The holy citizens are polite, friendly and always show willingness to help, probably due to the history of its religious teachings. There are numerous temples across the whole petite town with a population of just four hundred thousand.

The Golden Top (金顶) temple on top of the holy mountain at 3,077 metres enjoys an incredibly beautiful and holy landscapes, which is considered to be unbeatable by other scenes, already described in numerous historical Chinese poems by many famous poets, most notably Li Bai (李白) 1,300 years ago. The temple sits just above the clouds looking over all mountains around it with warm colours of dusk and dawn, while below the clouds is snowy and foggy. One has to show its sincerity by walking through the cloud layers and climb the steep mountain to reach the top to see her stunning beauty.

Places: Mount Emei Shan (峨眉山), Baoguo Temple (报国寺)

Photos captured on Hasselblad 500C/M, Carl Zeiss Planar and Distagon lenses, Kodak Ektar 100 and Ektachrome E100 colour negative and reversal films, scanned with Epson V750 Pro. Colour Profile: ProPhoto RGB 16-bit