There are "nine palaces, eight views and seventy-two nunneries" in Laoshan, Qingdao. What is the origin behind this saying?
Because the Taoist culture in Laoshan, Qingdao is so popular, there is a saying of "Nine Palaces, Eight Views and Seventy-two Nunneries". Laoshan Taoism has the title of "Quanzhen Taoism, the Second Jungle in the World". Moreover, this statement is also related to our country’s ancient digital tradition. However, this does not mean that there is such a saying in Laoshan Mountain. There are really "Nine Palaces, Eight Views and Seventy-two Nunneries". The Taoist-related facilities on Laoshan Mountain far exceed this number.
The Taoist buildings in Laoshan were first built in the Western Han Dynasty. At that time, a man named Zhang Lianfu came to Laoshan and felt that this place was a geomantic treasure with outstanding people, so he built the Taiqing Palace here. Now, Taiqing Palace has become one of the temples that people must visit when visiting Laoshan. Later, people continued to come to Laoshan to build Taoist temples and other Taoist buildings. This continued until the Qing Dynasty, when more than a hundred Taoist temples were built here.
According to incomplete statistics, among these Taoist temples, four were built in the Han Dynasty, six in the Tang Dynasty, eight in the Song Dynasty, 20 in the Yuan Dynasty, 50 in the Ming Dynasty, 28 in the Qing Dynasty, and ten more. It is impossible to verify the construction time of seven of them. There are so many Taoist temples, and each one is full of incense. Therefore, in order to express the prosperity of Taoist culture in Laoshan Mountain, there is a saying of "Nine Palaces, Eight Views and Seventy-two Nunneries". However, this statement does not mean that Mount Laoshan has nine palaces, eight Taoist temples, and 72 nunneries. In fact, this is related to our country's culture of numbers.
The ancients also divided the numbers 1 to 9 into yin and yang. The odd numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 are yang numbers, which are the numbers of the sky, while 2, 4, 6, and 8 are the yin numbers, which are the earth numbers. number. 9 is the largest yang number, 8 is the largest yin number, and 72, the product of the two largest numbers, is regarded by the ancients as a collection of yin and yang, the most auspicious number between heaven and earth. It is a mysterious number, most suitable for Describe mysterious things. Therefore, "Nine Gongs, Eight Views and Seventy-Two Nunnery" is just a general term. What it really refers to is the prosperous Taoist culture of Laoshan Mountain.