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I had heard of the Chicken Foot Mountains in Yunnan Province before I set out with a few friends in an early spring to visit the mountains in Binchuan County, Dali City, Yunnan Province in southwestern China.

Chicken Foot towers in the northwest of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. Its mountains measure about 28 square kilometers 100 kilometers out of Dali. Made of volcano lava, the mountains present sharp cliffs. The range soars in the northwest and spreads downward toward southeast in three separate thrusts with another extension of peaks behind them. The range looks like a chicken foot, hence the name.

Our car wheezed up a zigzagging road flanked by woods that got thicker and thicker as we approached the mountains. The air was penetratingly crisp. All of a sudden, a small ball of colorful feathers jumped to the road. It was a pheasant with a long tail in several colors. The car screeched to a stop and the pheasant danced across the road, like a graceful ballerina, and vanished within a few seconds into a thick bush.

Spectacular Views

Chicken Foot embraces 47 mountains, 30 peaks, 34 precipices, 45 caves and more than 100 streams. The highest in the mountain range is Tianzhu (Sky Pillar) Peak at 3,000 meters above sea level. In 1637, a local grand duke ordered to have the Golden Hall in Kunming moved to the tiptop of the Heaven Pillar Peak. A large construction project was launched to build the Golden Top Temple. A sunrise viewing platform in the temple compound offers spectacular views in four directions.

The most breathtaking view from the platform is the sunrise. It is a must-see for tourists nowadays. Widespread in the west is the Erhai Lake, the largest freshwater lake in the province. The spreading blue lake sparkles serenely under the sun on a fine day. On the other side of the lake tower the 19 peaks of the Canshan Mountain. The south of the Chicken Foot is the best stage where surging or hovering clouds conjure up their most dramatic moments of illusion, glory, and color. About 50 kilometers away in the north is the Jade Dragon Snow Mountains. It can be seen from the viewing platform.

Buddhist Sanctuaries

Chicken Foot is by no means the highest mountains in Yunnan, but it is recognized as the fifth most important Buddhist sanctuary in China, after the four major Buddhist sanctuaries: Wutai Mountain, Emei Mountain, Jiuhua Mountain and Putuo Mountain.

It is said that a disciple of Buddha came to this mountain. The sanctuary rose to prominence in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and its prominence was respected in the following dynasties. In its peak time, Buddhists from India, Tibet and Southeast Asia came all the way to visit the sanctuary.

In a flat wide valley in the Chicken Foot Mountains stands the Zhusheng Temple, the largest Buddhist temple in the mountains. It looks almost like a city on a mountain slope. It was declared in 1983 as a key Buddhist Temple by the State Council. The Grand Hall in the temple has plaques respectively inscribed by Dr. Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925) and Liang Qichao (1873-1929).

By the temple stands a full-length white marble statue of Master Xuyun. Master Xuyun (184-1959) is one of the dozens of the most famous great masters known at the temple. His life was legendary. He came to the temple in 1904 as a monk accomplished in Buddhism, poetry, prose and medicine. He stayed at the temple for 15 years. As the temple deteriorated, he swore to rebuild it and restore its grandeur in the years when the disciple of Buddha lived here. So he started one-man campaign to raise money. He trekked around Yunan, across into Burma and other Southeastern Asia countries. Three years later he returned to the Chicken Foot with a procession of more than 300 mules carrying cash and other donated materials back to the temple. He worked hard to get the temple rebuilt. As legend goes, he, by exerting a magic power, moved a huge rock from a blocking position to a convenient position to make room for the project to proceed smoothly. Today, the rock is still in the temple as witness to the magic power of the great master. Master Xuyun was an influential figure in the Buddhist circles in 20th-century China. He was the honorary president of the first China Buddhism Association and a member of the CPPCC. He passed away at the age of 120 in 1959.

Xu Xiake

Chicken Foot is closely associated with Xu Xiake (1587-1641), one of the greatest ancient Chinese geographers and travelers. He set out in 1636 to explore southwestern China with Chicken Foot as his destination. Two years later he arrived. Then he visited Dali and Tengchong. In 1639, he came back to Chicken Foot, at the invitation of the local ruler, to write a chronicle of the Chicken Foot Mountains. In his first visit to the mountain, he had kept a diary of his tours in the mountains in more than 30,000 words, including 27 poems. In August that year, he returned to Chicken Foot and stayed at Xitan Temple. Three months later he completed the “Chronicle of Chicken Foot Mountains”. The Xitan Temple, built in the Ming Dynasty, went to ruins in the republican years in the first half of the 20th century.

Monk Jingwen was buried near the ruins of the Xitan Temple in Chicken Foot. Jingwen, a monk of todays Nanjing, wanted to visit the Xitan Temple in his lifetime. He copied a Buddhist classic sutra with his blood and wished to present it to the temple. He finally partnered with Xu Xiake and they traveled together to reach Chicken Foot. Xu and the monk ran into gangsters in Hunan Province on their way southward. In order to protect Xu and the blood sutra, the monk grappled with the gangsters and suffered a severe injury. He struggled to trek, and died half a year later when they reached Nanning. The monk asked Xu Xiake to carry his bones to the temple and present the precious sutra. Xu traveled alone for more than a year before he reached Chicken Foot. The monks wish was satisfied. Today, the monks tomb is in a valley near the Zhusheng Temple.

The tombstone of Monk Jingwen relates the friendship between Xu and the monk and the tribulations they experienced on their trekking. We said goodbye to the Chicken Foot Mountains at noon. Listening to the bubbling stream from the car, I thought about Xu Xiake and Monk Jingwen. □