Sacred Chinese site plans $118 million IPO

CC Liu, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

(Bloomberg Businessweek) The managers of Putuo Mountain, a Buddhist shrine where worshippers go to pray for healthy children, want to raise 750 million yuan ($118 million) in an initial public offering, China Daily reported today... 

  

Plans for the offering by one of China’s four main Buddhist mountains come as China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs has criticized local governments for seeking to turn a profit off religious sites. More

• Religious sites face capital temptation
• (China Daily) Plans by local authorities to list famous Buddhist mountains on the country's equity markets are triggering a backlash regarding the commercialization of holy sites.

Lowest of sacred mountains (english.cri.cn)

Putuo Shan is one of the islands of the Zhoushan Archipelago, Ningbo, eastern China, which is comprised of 1,390 islands. The total area of Putuo Mountain is 12.93 square kilometers. It is one of China’s four great Buddhist Mountains. Putuo Mountain is the first group of national key places of interest, generally called [Chinese or Pureland] Buddhist Heaven on the sea and the Holy Land on the South Sea. It is a Five-A tourist destination in China. The immortal mountains [wrapped] in clouds and [surrounded by] waters offer travelers a feeling of mystery and sanctity. Putuo Mountain is a famous Kwan-Yin ceremonial center in China...

  

Monks go on 500-mile journey on their knees to Putuo

Mahayana monks making their way to Kwan Yin

A pair of Buddhist monks are to make a 500-mile journey on their knees to the religion's holiest shrines in China. Masters Zhiyuan and Hanliang will spend two months crawling to 99 temples on their way to the Putuo Mountains in eastern China until they reach a statue of Kwan Yin, the Buddhist goddess (bodhisattva) of mercy.... "They will crawl, and then every third step they will stop and bow as a sign of respect to the goddess," explained one.