Mount Lu

A majestic ridge pass offering views over the vast expanse of Poyang Lake and the sunrise horizon.

A spectacular three-tiered cascade dropping 215 meters below the Five Old Men Peaks.

A distinguished stone estate that hosted both Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong during critical historic summits.

Ringed by Xianglu, Shuangjian and other peaks on Mount Lu's southern flank, Xiufeng holds the Kaixian falls, whose western cascade is generally taken as the one in Li Bai's poem.

The premier of China's Four Great Academies, where Zhu Xi codified classical Neo-Confucian education rules.

A mountain town perched at 1100m, home to over 600 historic stone villas built in diverse global architectural styles.

The tranquil park where Tang poet Bai Juyi composed his famous verses on late-blooming mountain peach blossoms.

Founded in 377 for the monk Huiyong a few hundred paces west of Donglin Temple, it keeps a Tang brick pagoda, and its wall bore Su Shi's famous quatrain.

I cannot know the true face of Mount Lu, only because I myself am within this mountain.

Its flying torrent plunges straight down three thousand feet; I wonder if the Milky Way is falling from the ninth heaven.

Wrote of Mount Lu in “Written on the Wall of Xilin Temple”. Northern Song writer, calligrapher and official, exiled to Huangzhou after the Crow Terrace poetry trial and later to Huizhou and Hainan

Wrote of Xiufeng Scenic Area of Mount Lu in “Viewing the Waterfall at Mount Lu, No. 2”. High Tang poet who served briefly in the Hanlin Academy, was banished to Yelang for joining Prince Yong, and was hailed by He Zhizhang as a banished immortal

Part of Mount Lu's history: Buddhism Spreading East. Founder of the Liang who reigned for nearly fifty years, four times gave himself to the Tongtai monastery, and died confined in Jiankang after Hou Jing's rebels took the palace city

Part of Mount Lu's history: Buddhism Spreading East. Eminent Indian Buddhist master who arrived at Luoyang upon Emperor Ming's invitation, co-founding White Horse Temple.

Part of Mount Lu's history: Buddhism Spreading East. Indian Buddhist monk who accompanied Kasyapa Matanga to Luoyang and co-translated the Sutra of Forty-two Chapters.

Part of Mount Lu's history: Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism. Southern Song Neo-Confucian whose Collected Commentaries on the Four Books became the set text of the civil examinations from the Yuan onward

Part of Mount Lu's history: Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism. Southern Song Confucian teacher known as Master Xiangshan, who held that the mind is principle and argued with Zhu Xi at Goose Lake in 1175

Buddhism Spreading East

Buddhist monks and texts reached Han lands through Central Asia; translation and monasteries gradually embedded the new religion in local society.

In 402, Huiyuan and fellow practitioners formed a devotional society at Donglin Temple on Mount Lu, later remembered as the White Lotus Society and an early Pure Land tradition.

In the fourth month of 817, Jiangzhou vice-prefect Bai Juyi visited Dalin Temple on Mount Lu and wrote Peach Blossoms at Dalin Temple after finding the mountain blossoms in bloom.

Li Bai's View of Lushan Waterfall made the falls at Incense Burner Peak part of a renowned Tang poem and Lushan's literary memory.

Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism

The official ideology that shaped East Asian intellectual elite's spiritual world for seven centuries.

In 1179, while governing Nankang, Zhu Xi restored Bailudong Academy, appointed teachers, endowed fields, and formulated the Bailudong Academy Precepts.

In 1895, Li Deli began developing villas on Lushan's Guling, establishing the resort's documented modern development.

In 1996, Lushan National Park was inscribed as a cultural landscape shaped by the long interaction of scenery, religion, education, and art.