The Spread and Acceptance of the Geographical Concept of Tianzhu in China—Take the Theory of the River Origin System of Buddhist Holy Mountain as an example
Due to different geographical perspectives,there are three different theories in Buddhism River Origin System centered on Lake/Mountain Anavatapta,included Four Rivers theory,Five Rivers theory and Eight Rivers theory.After the end of Eastern Han Dynasty,the Four Rivers theory began to inte-grate with the Kunlun River Origin System in China.During the Sixteen Kingdoms Period,Dao'an inter-preted Four Rivers as Six Rivers.During the Tang and Song Dynasties,monks and secular scholars inter-preted the river origin system of Buddhist holy mountain from different perspectives,in which Daoxuan vig-orously advocated this theory for respecting the Tianzhu Center theory.Since then,Dushi's exploration of the origin of Yellow River in the Yuan Dynasty had shaken the geographical basis of the theory of the Yellow River derived from Kunlun mountains and the theory of the river origin system of Buddhist holy mountain.The geographical practice in the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty further separated the Yellow River source area from the Buddhist holy mountain.However,after the Qianlong period,the theory of the river ori-gin system of Buddhist holy mountain still had a considerable influence in the intellectual circles.This his-torical phenomenon shows that religious geography theory was an important reference for the ancients to un-derstand the world before the popularization of modern geography.
The Yellow River source areaLake/Mountain AnavataptaKunlun mountainsBuddhism Geographical cognition
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