Located some 230 km from Hangzhou, Tiantai Mountain is famous for its beautiful scenery and known as home to Chinese, Korean and Japanese followers of Tiantai Buddhism. Among its many Buddhist monasteries, Guoqing Monastery, built in 598 in the Sui Dynasty (581-618), is the most famous and is the home base of the Tiantai sect. The mountain is not very high, with the Huadingfeng summit reaching only 1,138 meters. The Red Stones of Chicheng, Shiliang Waterfall and Huadingfeng are considered the best natural landscapes on the mountain.

The rolling Tiantai Mountain features towering peaks, rocks of various shapes, deep caves, swift mountain streams, waterfalls and surging clouds. From Tiantai Mountain one can catch a panoramic view of the beautiful surrounding scenery.

At present, people of Tiantai Mountain offer different tourist options: a pilgrimage for Buddhist believers of the birth place of Ji Gong, known as the living Buddha, and recuperation through qi gong exercises.

Tiantai Mountain sits about 200 km away from Shanghai. It can be reached via the Shanghai-Hangzhou and the Hangzhou-Ningbo expressways. A bus ride to Tiantai Mountain takes about two hours.

  Original birthplace of Buddhism and Taoism

Tiantai Mountain is a well-known Buddhist Mecca. About 1,300 years ago, Master Zhizhe initiated Tiantai Buddhism on Tiantai Mountain. About 100 years later, the monk Jianzhen went to Japan to spread doctrines of the Tiantai sect. In 804 of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), a Japanese monk came over to Guoqing Temple to learn Buddhist scriptures; after he went back to Japan, he initiated the Japanese Tiantai sect, which cherished Guoqing Temple as its ancestor. Buddhist exchanges between the two countries promoted friendship between the Chinese and Japanese people. As a result, the doctrines of the Tiantai Sect gradually spread to Japan and Korea. At its peak period, there were more than 1,000 Buddhist venues on Tiantai Mountain.

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