This page groups sacred sites by whether their sacred status is still actively maintained. Wikipedia notes that Mircea Eliade "argues that while the concept of a sacred space is often associated with religious traditions, it is not exclusive to them," since secular societies can keep treating a place as significant too. Browsing this way lets a visitor tell a site with living religious observance apart from one preserved mainly for its history.
Facts
Overview
What Defines This GroupingMountains held to be places of power where immortals dwell and adepts seek the Way, with the temples and monasteries built on them. Taoist sacred geography is an enumerated cosmological system of grotto-heavens and blessed lands rather than a list of shrines, and it overlaps the imperial and Buddhist mountain cults it grew up beside. 2 Origins
Whose Classification This IsThe enumerated scheme is Du Guangting's. His Record of the Grotto-Heavens, Blessed Grounds, Sacred Peaks and Marshes, and Famous Mountains, prefaced in 901, drew the earlier Celestial Master, Shangqing and Lingbao geographies into the single set of lists that later Taoism inherited. 2 Learn More
The Sacred Sites of Taoism
This group gathers the sacred sites of Taoism, above all the sacred mountains of China, long held to be places of power where immortals dwelt and adepts sought the Way, together with the temples and monasteries built upon them.
The browser will find the Taoist sacred mountains and temple complexes the atlas gathers. The entries describe each site's religious history and its place in Taoist practice and pilgrimage.
Practice Status
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. The Encyclopedia of Taoism
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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