Wu-t'ai shan

Wu-t'ai shan (ri bo rtse lnga). Five-Peaked Mountain.

• mountain with 5 peaks in China

• Sacred mountain in northern China, especially associated with Manjushri and with practice of Mantrayana.

Mount Wutai (五台山 Wǔ-tái-shān, ‘Five-Peaked Mountain’) in China, a mountain most sacred to the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī (-kumārabhūta) according to both Chinese and Tibetan tradition. It is located in Shanxi Province (山西省 Shān-xī shěng in northeastern China. In Tibetan it is known as (shar phyogs kyi) spang ri rtse lnga or more commonly, ri bo rtse lnga, 'the Five-Peaked Mountain (of the eastern direction)'. This is usually identified with Mount Wutai (五台山 Wǔ-tái-shān, ‘Five-Peaked Mountain’) in China, according to both Chinese and Tibetan tradition.

སངས་རྒྱས་ཕལ་པོ་ཆེའི་མདོ་ལས་ཀྱང་ཤར་ཕྱོགས་ཀྱི་སྤང་རི་རྩེ་ལྔ་ལ་གནས་ཤིང་བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ་ཁྲི་དང་ལྷན་ཅིག་ཏུ་བཞུགས་པར་འབྱུང་ངོ༌། "And in the Buddha’s Flower Adornment Scripture ([mahāvaipulya]-buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra) too, it is stated that he (Mañjuśrīkumārabhūta) resides on the five-peaked grassy mountain in the eastern direction, and lives there together with ten thousand bodhisattvas."

[Erick Tsiknopoulos]