Sun Chuo’ s “You Tiantai Shan Fu”, a renowned rhapsody in the Eastern Jin period, is included in Xiao Tong’s Selections of Refined Literature, as a classic work, having a far-reaching impact on later generations’ perception of Tiantai Mountain. This landscape writing reflects an integration of Taoist and Buddhist ideologies. Sun Chuo expresses his desire for immortality in this spiritual journey of Tiantai Mountain. However, his ultimate quest is the realization of Prajna. In Sun Chuo’s perception, the sacredness of Tiantai Mountain is influenced by both the Taoist practitioners and his friend Zhi Dun, a highly respected monk among the literati at that time. In his “You Tiantai Shan Fu”, Sun Chuo uses meditation to reorganize the geographic information brought by those monastic practitioners, imagines, and constructs a Buddhist landscape that enables him to liberate from “the six gunas” and “the five covers”, eliminate the boundary between “form” and “empty”, and obtain the wisdom of Prajna. Tiantai Mountain as a Buddha Land was carried forward by Master Zhi Yi, but before that, Tiantai Mountain not only belonged to Taoist tradition, but was also regarded as a “sacred mountain” by Buddhist monks and their followers from the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
