Of the famous mountains in China,Mount Lushan is the frist where Chinese and foreign scholars got together to carry out academic activities.
In A.D 391 and 410,a Nepalese and an Indian Chan master was respetively invited by Hui Yuan to Mount Lushan to transate Buddhist scriptures.Hui wrote foreword for these translated versions of Buddhist scriptures.In A.D414,a Nepalese Chan master came to serve as abbot of the Guizhong Temple here.
In his works“Biographies of Eminent Monks”completed in A.D519,Hui Jiao—a famous Buddhist monk,wrote that“many foreign monks believe that there is a Mahayana master in China.For this reason,they would kneel down eastwark to kowtow to Mount Lushan whenever they worship.”
The Sukhavati theory of Hui Yuan and the theory of“sudden awakening to become a Buddhist”of Zhu Daosheng both originated in Mount Lushan.They consititute an important component part of the theorise of Chinese Buddhism and philosophy and have left their impact on the development of literature and art in not only China but also the Orient as a whole.
Jianhen,a famous Buddhist master in the Tang Dynasy,brought the Sukhavati theory of Hui Yuan to Japan.Till today,the Sukhavati sect of Buddhism in Japan regards the East Grove Temple in Mount Lushan as its“ancestral home”.
During his stay in Jiangxi from 1595 and 1598,the Italian missionmary Matteo Ricci preached many times at the White Deer Cave Academy in Mount Lushan.The astronomy,geography,mathematics and other natural sciences were well received by the teachers and students of the academy.
In 1804,Sir John Barrow,counselor at the British Embassy in China,went to great details to describe the landscape,plants and culture of Mount Lushan in his English book“Notes on China Travel”.
The frist person who told the world the local chronicles of Mount Lushan is Wyile Alexander,leader of the China Mission of British Christian organization,the Church of England.In his English book“Selected Documents of China”completed in 1867,he gave prominent space to the“Notes on Mount Lushan”written by Chen Shunyu of the Song Dynasy.
Mount Lushan saw new development in morden times when more than 30 Christian missions from over 20 countries as well as Buddhist,Islamic and Taoist settled down here,with the total number of religious sects from the West and the East reaching nearly 40.In 1922,there lived in Mount Lushan 2,497 foreigners of nearly 20 different nationalities,of whom most were missionaries.In September 1933,foreign religious missions held a meeting in Mount lushan.
Buck Pearl,the woman writer of the United States who won the Nobel Prize for Literature,visited Mount Lushan frequently during her life to absord literary nutritions,Her father was buried in Mount Lushan.
In 1934,Li Siguang and geologists from Britain,Germany,France and Sweden held a seminar in Mount Lushan to discuss issues about Lushan’s Quatenary glaciers.