Hùcóng xīxún rìlù 扈從西巡日錄
Daily Record of Attending the Imperial Tour to the West by 高士奇 (撰)
About the work
A 1-juàn daily-itinerary record by Gāo Shìqí 高士奇 (1645–1703), then Zhānshìfǔ Zhānshì 詹事府詹事 and Shìjiǎng 侍講, accompanying the Kāngxī emperor’s Kāngxī 22 (1683) tour to Wǔtáishān 五臺山 in Shānxī. The diary runs from the jiǎshēn day of the second month (12 February 1683) — when the imperial chariot exited Xuānwǔmén through Guǎngníngmén, crossing the Lúgōuqiáo — to the wùshēn day of the third month (7 March 1683), when the emperor returned to the palace. Twenty-five days in total. The diary is followed by an appendix of twenty-four poems composed by Gāo on the journey.
The work is the third of Gāo’s principal kòu-cóng records, alongside Sōng-tíng xíng jì (KR2g0060, for the 1681 Xǐ-fēng-kǒu tour) and Hù-cóng dōng-xún rì-lù (for the 1682 Shèng-jīng / Mukden tour). The Xī-xún tour was a major imperial event: Kāngxī’s first pilgrimage to Wǔ-tái-shān, the great Mahāyāna Buddhist mountain sacred to Mañjuśrī (Wén-shū 文殊). The tour passed through the Wú Tài’s Tái-huái 臺懷 monastic complex (the Pú-sà-dǐng 菩薩頂, Yǒng-míng-sì 永明寺 / Dà-xián-tōng-sì 大顯通寺, Yuán-zhào-sì 圓照寺, Tǎ-yuàn 塔院, Luó-hóu-sì 羅㬋寺, Shū-xiàng-sì 殊像寺, etc.); ascended the Nán-tái 南臺, Běi-tái 北臺, Dōng-tái 東臺, and Xī-tái 西臺; visited the Zhōng-tái 中臺 / Yǎn-jiào-sì 演教寺 and the Yù-huá-sì 玉華寺 / Wàn-shòu-sì 萬壽寺 — leaving imperial inscriptions at multiple sites.
The diary has rich antiquarian content: extended notes on Lúgōuqiáo; on the Mòzhōu 鄚州 and the legend of Biǎn Què 扁鵲’s birthplace; on the Téngyuánfā 滕元發 and Sòng Yīnzōng poetic-and-historical material from Jiǎngzhōu 絳州; on the great suōluóshù 娑羅樹 (Shorea robusta) at Bāzhōu and Chángshān — citing extensive tree-history materials from Jīngzhōu jì 荊州記 to Sòng-period poetry by Sū Shì and Ōuyáng Xiū. The Wú Tài passages contain detailed ethnography (the Wú Tài “tiānhuā” 天花 mushroom; the chángsōng 長松 (“long pine”) herb; the hánhàochóng 寒號蟲 — the strange small mountain animal whose feathers shed in winter). The closing poems include exchanges with court colleagues Zhū Yízūn 朱彝尊 and Zhāng Yīng 張英.
Tiyao
Hùcóng xīxún rìlù in 1 juàn, by Gāo Shìqí of our dynasty. Shìqí has Chūnqiū dìmíng kǎolüè (KR1e0105) already catalogued. The Sage Ancestor-Benevolent-Sovereign (Kāngxī) toured Shānxī, halting his chariot at Wǔtáishān. Shìqí at the time was holding the office of Shìjiǎng and supplying inner-court drafting; he attended on the imperial procession back and forth, and so recorded what he saw and heard along the way. It begins on the jiǎshēn day of the second month and ends on the wùshēn day of the third month — covering all shānchuān (mountains-and-rivers), gǔjì (antiquities), rénwù (persons), and tǔfēng (local customs) examined for yuánliú (origin and course); his kǎo is rather detailed and accurate. The imperial tour’s exemplary occasion is also fully recorded; reading it, one can still see the shènghuà tiánxī (sage transformation, calm and serene) and yùyóu hélè (imperial leisure, harmoniously joyful) atmosphere — sufficient to be transmitted to coming generations. At the end of the volume are 24 poems — these too were composed during the tour and are appended afterward. Shìqí’s pen-and-ink work is itself fine; in being granted the chance to attend the imperial procession, he was thereby able to commit it to writing and transmit it down to the present — this can be called the height of zāoféng (favorable encounter) and the supreme glory of letters. Reverently presented in the eleventh month of Qiánlóng 46 (= 1781). Chief Editors: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Hùcóng xīxún rìlù is the principal Chinese-language eyewitness record of Kāngxī’s first imperial pilgrimage to Wǔtáishān — an episode of large dynastic significance. The Kāngxī emperor’s patronage of Wǔtáishān was a deliberate act of religious-political diplomacy directed at his Mongolian and Tibetan vassals: Wǔtái was the Wénshū bodhisattva’s abode according to Mahāyāna scripture and was already by 1683 the focus of vigorous Tibetan Buddhist pilgrimage. By appearing personally at the Púsàdǐng and ascending the four cardinal tái (peaks) — leaving imperial inscriptions at multiple sites — Kāngxī performed his role as Wénshū chakravartin in the Inner-Asian Buddhist imagination. Gāo Shìqí’s diary is the principal Hàn-Chinese literary documentation of this performance.
The work is firmly bracketed: events occur 1683.02.12 – 1683.03.07; the diary was written up promptly thereafter. Like the Sōngtíng xíng jì, it was probably circulated soon after composition, with revisions through the early 1680s; a defensible window is 1683–1685.
The work’s value: (i) detailed itinerary of the imperial tour, with daily halts and ceremonies; (ii) detailed antiquarian survey of Wǔtáishān — the only contemporary literati-eye-witness account of late-seventeenth-century Wǔtái monasticism, including the conditions of the Wànfúshèngzǎoyùchí 萬聖澡浴池 (Hot-Bathing-Pool of the Ten Thousand Sages), the Wànshòusì / Yùhuásì arrangement of the five-hundred Luóhàn statues, the Púsàdǐng and the Língjiùfēng 靈鷲峰 monastery clusters; (iii) extensive kǎozhèng notes on geography (the Zǐjīngguān 紫荊關, Lóngquánguān 龍泉關, the Chángchénglǐng 長城嶺), on plant and animal natural history (the suōluóshù, hánhàochóng, chángsōng herb), on local customs (bīnglíng villages of the Píngyuán plain), and on imperial-edict historical sites; (iv) the appended twenty-four poems, which include exchanges with prominent Hàn-court colleagues and provide a sample of Gāo’s poetic output.
Translations and research
- No substantial English-language secondary literature located on this work specifically.
- Jonathan D. Spence, Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K’ang-hsi (Knopf, 1974), provides background on Kāngxī’s tours.
- Patricia M. Berger, Empire of Emptiness: Buddhist Art and Political Authority in Qing China (UHP, 2003), discusses Kāngxī’s Wǔ-tái-shān patronage in the context of Qing imperial Buddhist policy.
- Susan Naquin and Chün-fang Yü, eds., Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China (UC Press, 1992), with chapters on Wǔ-tái-shān pilgrimage.
- Wen-shing Chou, Mount Wutai: Visions of a Sacred Buddhist Mountain (PrincetonUP, 2018), the standard recent monograph on Wǔ-tái in late-imperial visual and material culture.
- The Sì-kù tíyào notice is in 史部·傳記類四·雜錄之屬.
Other points of interest
The diary preserves a memorable hunting episode at the close of the Wǔtái visit: as the imperial party descended the Táihuái through a narrow valley, a tiger emerged from the brush; Kāngxī drew his bow and brought it down with a single shot, and the regional officials Mùěrsài 穆爾賽 and Kùěrkāng 庫爾康 petitioned to commemorate the event by naming the place “Shèhǔchuān” 射虎川 (Tiger-Shooting River). The Sìkù editors carefully record the incident — among other illustrations of Kāngxī’s martial prowess — though they are stricter on Gāo’s kǎozhèng lapses (cf. the parallel critique of Sōngtíng xíng jì). The diary thus also serves as a court-literary record of the Kāngxī emperor’s deliberate self-presentation as a martial-and-cultural ruler, both in the Mongol tradition (the hunt) and in the Hàn-Chinese tradition (the imperial pilgrimage and inscription).
Links
- CBDB person id 30853 (Gāo Shìqí 高士奇, 1645–1703).
- Wilkinson 2018, Chinese History: A New Manual §47.5 (the four sacred Buddhist mountains).
- Hummel 1943, s.v. Kao Shih-ch’i.