Yaotai Mountain

Yaotai Mountain, also known as Wuxian Mountain, is located at the front of Zhongtiao Mountain, 2 kilometers from Xia County, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province. It has a solitary peak, lush greenery, and a strip of water, and the scenery is pleasant. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there were many temples here, which was a good place for tourists to worship and enjoy, especially during the Mid-Autumn Festival. There is a nine-story pagoda in Taixu Temple on the top of Yaotai Mountain, which is 43.69 meters high. The pagoda enshrines the Three Buddhas and the five great Bodhisattvas, including Guanyin, Manjusri, Samantabhadra, Ksitigarbha, and Maitreya. Taoism has built temples and pavilions such as Sanqing, Sanguan, Wenchang, Yaowang, and Leishen.

Yaotai Mountain not only has a long history, but also has a very special natural shape. Its abrupt appearance is almost a very regular cone. In terms of altitude, it is not high, only about 600 to 700 meters, but in terms of the relative height of its cone, it is as high as 1,000 meters. Compared with other peaks behind it, it not only looks tall and proud, but also really reveals a kind of sacredness and extraordinaryness.

The bottom of the mountain is round, and the top is also round. According to surveys by relevant departments, the diameter of the bottom of the mountain is about 500 meters, while the diameter of the top of the mountain is 51 meters, which is exactly one tenth of the former. This naturally reminds us of the basic shape of altar buildings in ancient times, such as the altars for sacrifices such as the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, which actually look like this. Tracing back along the vein of historical development, it is said that the earliest primitive altars all originated from natural mountains.