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Peak Tianzhu,the main peak of the mountain,is 3,240 meters above sea level．From the peak,one can watch the sunrise in the east.beautiful clouds in the south,the vast Erhal Lake in the west and Yulong Snow Mountain in the north.For this, the famous traveler Xu Xiake addressed the mountain as "a mountain of four views" .
He commended the peak as "one summit which gathers all the views under the sun" .There are eight other fantastic views on the mountain, namely "Halo of the Buddha" ,"Thunder on a Fine Day" ,"Mist Circling Over Erhai Lake" ,"Old Snow on the Cangshan Mountain" ,"Soughing of the Wind in the Pines in the Ravines","Splashing Waterfalls Piercing the Clouds" ,"Cliffs in the Sunset" ,and"Buddhist Temples and Pagodas in the Autumn Moon" .
Tradition has it that Mount Jizu is where the Reverend Kasyapa,a disciple of Sakyamumi,contemplated in seclusion with his cassock and it is his Bodhimandala (place where he attained enlightment) .Because of this,it is regarded as one of the five important Buddhist mountains in China．During the Tang Dynasty many Buddhist temples were built here and expanded later during the Yuan and Ming dynasties.During the Qing Dynasty when Buddhism became popular here, the mountain had altogether 108 temples (including 36 monasteries and 72 nunneries) and as many as five thousand monks and nuns.
Surviving in the mountain today are Zhusheng Temple,Kasyapa Hall,Tongwa Hall,Jinding Temple and Pagoda of Monk Jingwen.Among them,Zhusheng Temple and Tongwa Hall were listed in 1983 by the State Council among the important national Buddhist temples in the Han area.In past dynasties,Mount Jizu nurtured many eminent monks like Xuyun,who contributed to the propagation of Buddhism and to cultural exchanges and development at home and abroad.Also, many celebrities have presented the mountain with epigraphs and plaques,Of these,the plaque inscribed by Sun Yat-sen with the characters Kasyapa remains dignified and the plaque inscribed by Liang Qichao with the characters the holy mountain brightens up are still hanging above the door of the Hall of the Great Hero of the Zhusheng Temple.Behind the hall lies scripture store house in which many Sanskrit scriptures,valuable cultural relics and calligraphy and paintings by notable persons are stored.
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