Niushoushan

About

Niushou Mountain, or Niushoushan, located in Jiangning District of Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province, China, is a low hill belonging to the southern branch of the western Ningzhen Hills. Its main peak stands at an elevation of 242.9 meters. The mountain name literally means the "Ox Head Mountain" because the east and west peaks form the shape of two horns of an ox). The mountain derives its name from its twin peaks, which resemble the horns of an ox.It is also known as Tianque Mountain and is referred to as Niutou Mountain by locals. The park is newly developed and opened as a tourist attraction in 2014, but the location has been a Buddhist site since the Tang dynasty (618–907AD). However, the original temple was destroyed in the 1850s during the Taiping Rebellion. Since 2015, the palace has been the shrine for the world's only parietal relic of Buddha (the skull of Shakyamuni), making Niushoushan a sacred location for Buddhists. The relic was found in the Ashoka Pagoda in the underground palace of the Bao'en Temple (the former Changgan Temple of the Song dynasty) in Qinhuai District, Nanjing.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.