Flaming Mountains

The Flaming Mountains (Chinese火焰山, Pinyin huǒ Yan Shan) are barren, eroded red sandstone hills in the Tian Shan mountains in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China. They are located at the extreme northern edge of the Taklamakan Desert and east of the city of Turpan.

Their distinctive trenches developed over many years by volcanic influence. Molten lava flowed down the mountainsides, giving the mountains their characteristic name. The mountains are 98 kilometers long and nine miles wide, they pull in the Tarim Basin from east to west. The average height of the Flaming Mountains is 500 meters. The climate is inhospitable; in summer it can in parts hotter than 50 ° C are, then one finds the hottest point in the country. One of the largest thermometers in China - a popular attraction among tourists - is located next to a mountain and displays the current ambient temperature.

Silk Road

In times past, the Taklamakan Desert was shunned by commercial travelers on the Silk Road, such as Gaochang oasis towns were built at the foot of the Flaming Mountains, which served as interim and Mountain Pass stations for traveling merchants.

Buddhist missionaries accompanied traders on international trade routes often, and during the heyday of the Silk Road Buddhist monasteries and temples to their nodes and near the mountain passes built.

The Thousand Buddha Caves Bazaklik, a complex of 70 Buddhist Höheltempeln from the fifth to ninth century, are located in a ravine below the cliffs of the Flaming Mountains in the vicinity of the pass of Gaochang. Many of the temples are provided with thousands of cave paintings.

Literary fame

The Flaming Mountains are so named because of a Buddhist monk, who was accompanied by the king of the monkeys. This monkey king had magical powers and ran during his pilgrimage to India in a wall of flames. This story is told Journey to the West in the classic Chinese novel.

The novel is the embellished description of the journey of the monk Xuanzang to India in 627, which led over a pass in the Tian Shan after he left Gaochang.

Legends

An old Han Legend has it that the king of the monkeys knocked over a stove and dropped ash on the site are available on the day the Flaming Mountains. According to a Uyghur legend lived in the mountains of the Tian Shan, a dragon who ate small children. After a Uighur hero had defeated the dragon, he cut it into eight pieces and the blood turned into a red mountain, whose eight valleys symbolize the pieces of the dragon.