the desecrated sacred Mount T'ai Shan -- 1628

Searching to compare the "ideas" of Mount T'ai Shan and Mount Sinai, I located this from an account of a trip, a pilgrimage, to Mount T'ai ca. 1628. It reveals that the dismaying, annoying experience I had in July 2012, with the crowds, sellers and shops, is also a tradition of Moung T'ai Shan. There were differences, but essentially...

From Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China by Susan Naquin, in the account of Chang Tai, ca. 1628:
“But the beggars were only one of two abominations: the other was the visitor’s disgusting practice of inscribing on rocks as well as on the tablets they erected such trite phrases as ‘Venerated by Ten Thousand Generations’, or ‘The Redolence Continuing for an Eternity’. The beggars exploited Mount Tai for money while the visitors exploited Mount T’ai for fame. The land of Mount T’ai, once pure, was now everywhere desecrated by these two groups”. (p. 77-78)