Pusading, the Yellow Temple on the Hill

Pusading sits on Lingjiu Peak, the ridge above Taihuai, and is the largest and most complete Tibetan Buddhist monastery on the mountain. Its name means Bodhisattva Summit, and a story explains it: Manjushri was seen to reveal himself and preach at this summit. The monastery began in the reign of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei as the Great Manjushri Court. In 1656, in the thirteenth year of Shunzhi, it was changed into a lama temple, and from then on Qing emperors, princes and lamas lodged here when they came to worship. In 1983 it was named a national key Buddhist temple in the Han Chinese area, and in 2006 it was folded into the Wutai ancient building group.

The yellow is the first thing seen from below: glazed tiles on the main hall, a colour that only the emperor's permission allowed, granted in 1683, when a garrison was also posted to guard the monastery. Against grey brick and the dark green of the slopes, the roof is the one warm surface on the ridge. The approach is a stairway of 108 stone steps, steep enough that the climb is made slowly, past walls and gates that keep the summit hidden until the last flight. From the yard at the top the roofs of Taihuai lie below in a heap of grey and yellow. The steps are why the place feels like an arrival rather than a visit.

Two emperors left their writing here, and both pieces are still in place. Under the archway of the gate hangs a plaque of four characters, Lingfeng Shengjing, the wondrous realm of the spirit peak, written by the Kangxi emperor. East of the Great Hero Hall is a court of inscriptions with two stele pavilions; the Qianlong stele inside stands five metres high and carries a poem in seven-character regulated verse, the same text cut on its four faces in Manchu, Tibetan, Chinese and Mongolian. That one stone repeats itself in four scripts is the clearest statement the monastery makes about what it was: a place where the Qing court spoke to several Buddhist worlds at once.