Firstly it is one of the Places where I would like to go...
The Kunlun Mountains (simplified Chinese: 昆仑山; traditional Chinese: 崑崙山; pinyin: Kūnlún Shān; Mongolian: Хөндлөн Уулс) is one of the longest mountain chains in Asia, extending more than 3,000 km.
The Kunlun runs westwards along the northern part of the Tibetan plateau to form the border range of northern Tibet. It stretches along the southern edge of what is now called the Tarim Basin, the infamous Takla Makan or "sand-buried houses" desert, and the Gobi desert. A number of important rivers flow from it including theKarakash River ('Black Jade River') and the Yurungkash River ('White Jade River'), which flow through the Khotan Oasis into the Taklamakan Desert.
The highest mountain of the Kunlun Shan is the Kunlun Goddess (7,167 m) in the Keriya area. The Arka Tagh is in the center of the Kunlun Shan; its highest point is Ulugh Muztagh. Some authorities claim that the Kunlun extends north westwards as far as Kongur Tagh (7,649 m) and the famous Muztagh Ata (7,546 m). But these mountains are physically much more closely linked to the Pamir group (ancient Mount Imeon).
Bayan Har Mountains, a southern branch of the Kunlun Mountains, forms the watershed between the catchment basins of China's two longest rivers, the Yangtze River and the Huang He.
The mountain range formed at the northern edges of the Cimmerian Plate during its collision, in the Late Triassic, with Siberia, which resulted in the closing of thePaleo-Tethys Ocean.
Mythology
The Kunlun mountains are believed to be Taoist paradise. The first to visit this paradise was, according to the legends, King Mu (976-922 BCE) of the Zhou Dynasty. He supposedly discovered there the Jade Palace of Huang-Di, the mythical Yellow Emperor and originator of Chinese culture, and met Hsi Wang Mu (Xi Wang Mu) , the 'Spirit Mother of the West' usually called the 'Queen Mother of the West', who was the object of an ancient religious cult which reached its peak in the Han Dynasty, also had her mythical abode in these mountains. Jesuit missionaries, the noted American Sinologist Charles Hucker, and London University’s Dr Bernard Leeman (2005) have suggested that Xiwangmu and the Queen of Sheba were one and the same person. The Transcendency of Sheba, a religious group, believes that the Queen of Sheba's pre-Deuteronomic Torah recorded in the Kebra Nagast was influential in the development of Daoism. They insist that after vacating the throne for her son Solomon the queen journeyed to the Kunlun Mountains where, known as the Queen from the West, she attained spiritual enlightenment.
References
- Leeman, Bernard Queen of Sheba and Biblical Scholarship. Queensland Academic Press Westbrook Australia. 2005. ISBN 097580220
- Munro-Hay, Stuart Aksum. Edinburgh: University Press. 1991. ISBN 0748601066
- China Tibet Information Centre
- Worldwildlife.org description
- Chinaculture.org
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