Chicken Foot Mountain is also called ‘Jizu Shan’ in Chinese. Further away from Dali (Yunnan Province) to the North East side of Erhai Lake behind Wase is Jizu Shan, called this because the mountain and its ranges look like a chicken’s foot.
Chicken Foot Mountain is categorized into the dry heat river valley climate, the warm moist mountain climate and the warm cool moist Subalpine climate.
It is the famous Buddhism Mountain of the country. It shares the honor together with the four famous Buddhism mountain of E’mei, Wutai, Jiuhua and Putuo. The entire mountain comprised a total of 40 wonderful ranges, 13 dangerous mountainous peaks, 34 escarpments, 45 quiet caves and several hundreds of spring deep ponds altogether.
Chicken Foot Mountain is one of western China’s holiest peaks after the legendary monk Jiaye – who brought Buddhism from India to southern China – fought here with the wicked Jizu king. By the seventh century both Buddhist and Taoist pilgrims were coming in their thousands to honour his memory. In its heyday, a hundred or more monasteries graced Jizu’s heights, including the original Golden Temple transported here from Kunming, though by 1980 all but half a dozen had decayed.
The Chicken Foot Mountain Buddhism construction began during the Tang Dynasty and continued towards the Song and Yuan Dynasty, vigorous during the Ming Dynasty and was carried on till the Qing Dynasty until the Republic of China. During the reign of Emperor Kangxi of Qing Dynasty, Chicken-foot Mountain has 42 temples of various size, 65 Buddhist temples, over 170 silent rooms and the total monk in the temple is 5,000 people. The best-preserved and the most famous temple in Chicken Foot Mountain is Zhusheng Temple. Emperor Guang Xu bestowed the name of “Nation Protected Zhusheng Temple”. The temple with the highest elevation is Jin Ding Temple. It is located on the prominent Tianzhu Peak.
