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Flaming Mountains

Flaming Mountains

Flaming Mountains

The Flaming Mountains are barren, eroded, red sandstone hills in the Tian Shan Mountain range in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China. They lie near the northern rim of the Taklamakan Desert and east of the city of Turpan. Their striking gullies and trenches have been etched by years of volcanic activity that caused molten lava to course down the mountainsides, giving the mountains a flaming appearance at certain times of the day.

The mountains are 98 kilometers (61 mi) long and 9 kilometers (5.6 mi) wide and cross the Tarim Basin from east to west. The average height of the Flaming Mountains is 500 meters (1640 ft). The mountain climate is harsh and the temperature is extremely hot in the summer, the hottest spot in China with frequent temperature reaching over 50 °C (122 °F) or higher. One of the largest thermometers in China—a popular tourist spot—is on display adjacent to the mountain, tracking the surrounding air temperature.

Silk Route

In ancient times, the Taklamakan Desert was avoided by merchant traders transversing the Silk Route in southeast Asia and oasis towns such as Gaochang, built at the foot of the Flaming Mountains on the desert's rim near an important mountain pass, became respite stops for traveling merchant traders. Buddhist missionaries often accompanied traders on busy international trading routes and during the times trade boomed on the Silk Route, Buddhist monasteries and temples were built in the busy trading centers and in nearby remote mountain spots.

Flaming Mountains

Flaming Mountains

The Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves site lies in a gorge under the cliffs of the Flaming Mountains near the pass by Gaochang. It is a complex of seventy Buddhist cave grottoes dating from the 5th to the 9th centuries CE, many with thousands of murals of Buddha.

Literary Fame

The Flaming Mountains received their name from a fantasy account of a Buddhist monk, accompanied by a Monkey King with magical powers, who runs into a wall of flames on his pilgrimage to India in the popular 16th century novel, Journey to the West, by Ming Dynasty writer, Wu Cheng'en.The novel is an embellished description of the monk Xuanzang who traveled to India in 627 CE to obtain Buddhist scriptures and went through a pass in the Tien Shan after leaving Gaochang.

Legends

According to an old Han legend, the Monkey King created a disturbance in the heavens and knocked over a kiln, causing embers to fall from the sky to the place where the Flaming Mountains are now. In an Uigur legend, a dragon lived in the Tianshan Mountains. Because the dragon ate little children, an Uigur hero slew the dragon and cut it into eight pieces. The dragon's blood turned into a scarlet mountain of blood and the eight pieces became the eight valleys in the Flaming Mountains.[7]