525 meters high above the sea level, Mount Suxian is located at the suburb of Chenzhou which is in the southeast of Hunan Province. It has been famous for its legend and as "The 18th Blessing Land of China".

 

According to the legend, during the Western Han Dynasty (202 BC to 9 AD), a beautiful and educated girl surnamed Pan lived in western Chenzhou. One day she was washing clothes on the bank of Chenjiang River. Her wooden club was caught by a red ribbon flowing in the river. It could not be pulled away by hand, so she used the teeth to nip. However, the red ribbon fell into her stomach, and she became pregnant. She hid herself in a cave in Mount Suxian and gave birth to a boy, Suxian. To avoid the taunts from the villagers for giving birth to a baby before marriage, she abandoned the little boy. After Suxian was born, white cranes warmed the baby with feathers; white deer milked him. Suxian was later named Sundan by his mother for sceneries around. Suxian began to cultivate so that he could become immortal while he was very young, and finally ascended to heaven on a white crane. Before he flew upwards, he got to know that the neighborhood of Chenzhou would suffer a plague in the following year. He told his mother to boil water from wells with oranges to cure plagues. His mother followed his instructions and saved a lot of lives. These people, in order to pay gratitude, built Suxian Temple to sacrifice his statue in Mount Suxian. For this reason Mount Suxian became famous.

 

 Under a cliff on White Deer Cave stands a stele protection pavilion, on its inner wall carves a stele of famous inscriptions, which is a masterpiece incorporating a poem by celebrated poet Qin Guan (Qin Shaoyou, 1049-1100), an epilogue by Su Shi (Su Dongpo, 1037-1101) and the chirography from Great Calligrapher Mi Fu (1051-1107).