The "First Blessed Land" Maoshan, where a three-dimensional dragon was unearthed!

In the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the Taoist dragon casting ceremony for seeking immortality and blessings officially appeared. Taoists tied together bamboo slips with the wishes of the supplicants, jade bi, and golden dragons with green silk, prepared three copies, and named them mountain slips, earth slips, and water slips. Mountain slips were cast on the mountain top to report to the heavenly official; earth slips were buried in the ground to report to the earth official; water slips were cast into the water to report to the water official. In the Eastern Jin Dynasty, a system of famous mountains with the main background of seeking immortality gradually formed in Jiangnan - the Grotto-heavens. In the prosperous Tang Dynasty, the Grotto-heavens began to merge with the Five Sacred Mountains, developing into a system of "Grotto-heavens and Blessed Lands" with 118 famous mountains, and gradually merged with the national sacrificial system of "Mountains, Towns, Seas, and Rivers" in the late Tang Dynasty. Maoshan is located at the junction of Jurong and Jintan in Jiangsu, ranking as the eighth Grotto-heaven and the first Blessed Land, and is also the origin of the concept of "Grotto-heavens and Blessed Lands." In the Tang Dynasty, Maoshan officially became the official dragon casting site, the earliest known place for official dragon casting ceremonies. The official dragon casting at Maoshan continued until the fifth year of the Yongle reign of the Ming Dynasty (1407). The gilded bronze dragon unearthed from Huayang Cave in Maoshan is three-dimensional, with short double horns, beast feet, and a tiger tail. Other three-dimensional dragons include the gilded bronze dragon unearthed from Linwu Cave in Suzhou and the gilded bronze dragon from West Lake.