ABSTRACT
F rom the earliest times, mountains in China have been symbols of inspiration, where Confucius's benevolent man could find joy and Zhuangzi
was filled with delight.! Mountains were also the fantastic dwelling places of gods and immortals. The first section of the Zhuangzi speaks of a shenren :ff A (Holy man) living on Mount Guye who rides on a flying dragon.2 A similar reference can be found in the Liezi, a Daoist text dated to around the third century AD, to a fantastic creature, who inhales the wind, drinks the dew and inhabits one of five mountains situated east of the coast of Shandong: Daiyu 1ii-~, Yuanjiao ~"'t, Fanghu 7i 1£, Yingzhou ;&,,)1'1 and Penglai it 5jt. The mountains are described as being thirty thousand Ii high and as many miles round, with tablelands on the summit stretching for nine thousand li. They are covered in towers, terraces of gold and jade and trees of pearl and pomegranate, whose fruit grants immortality to those who eat it.3 The Liezi also includes accounts of the Yellow Emperor wandering in his dreams many thousands of miles from the Middle Kingdom, to a mountain attainable only by a 'journey of the spirit' (shenyou :ff):#-), as well as a version of the visit of King Mu of Zhou to the Queen Mother of the West in the Kunlun mountains.4
