Mao Shan

Mao Shan

Sacred mountain in Jiangsu province in China, the focus of Daoist revelations to the visionary Yang Xi (AD 364–370). Yang Xi was visited by a group of perfected immortals (zhenren) from the heaven of Shangqing (Supreme Purity), who gave him a new set of scriptures and instructions on the coming apocalypse, during which the good were to take refuge in luminous caverns beneath such sacred mountains as Mao Shan. The Mao Shan revelations incorporated elements of Buddhism into Daoist thought and proposed reforms of Daoism, including rejection of its sexual rites in favour of a spiritualized union with a celestial partner.