Máoshān zhì 茅山志
Chronicle of Máoshān
compiled by 劉大彬 (編, forty-fifth patriarch of Shàngqīng); prefaces by 趙世延 (序, 1324) and 吳全節 (序, 1327)
About the work
A thirty-three juan mountain-monograph of Máoshān 茅山, the principal sacred mountain of the Shàngqīng 上清 tradition (Jiāngsū), compiled at the imperial court’s encouragement by Liú Dàbīn 劉大彬, the forty-fifth Shàngqīng patriarch, with two prefaces by leading Yuán élite figures — Zhào Shìyán 趙世延 (1260–1336) of Tàidìng 1 = 1324, and Wú Quánjié 吳全節 (1269–1346) of Tàidìng 4 = 1327. Preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0304 / CT 304 = TC 304), 洞真部 記傳類. The chronicle’s twelve sections — originally divided into fifteen juan — assemble: imperial edicts (zhàogào 詔誥); the legend of the three Máo brothers; the topography of the mountain with its natural sites; bibliography of works composed there; the lineage of patriarchs in biographical form; lives of immortals and famous Daoists who lived on Máoshān; local flora; reproductions of stele inscriptions; and a final section of poetry and miscellanea. Apart from documentary material drawn from a wide range of historical sources, Liú drew especially on [[KR5d1010|Zhēn’gào 真誥]] (DZ 1016) and on a (now-lost) four-juan Máoshān jì 茅山記 of 1150 by Fú Xiǎo 傅霄 and Zēng Xún 曾恂 (“Xùlù” 序錄 1a, 16.7a–b in the present text). The eulogies (zàn 讚) appended to the patriarchs’ biographies in juan 10–12 are by Yú Jí 虞集 (1271–1348), and are also preserved in his Dàoyuán xuégǔ lù 道園學古錄 45.
Prefaces
Zhào Shìyán’s preface (XīQín Zhào Shìyán, Jíxián dàxuéshì Guānglù dàfū, dated the winter solstice of the jiǎzǐ year of Tàidìng — 1324): “In the Huángqìng 皇慶 gǎiyuán (1312), an edict bestowed upon the forty-fifth-generation patriarch of Máoshān, Liú Dàbīn, the title Dòngguān wēimiào xuányīng zhēnrén 洞觀微妙玄應真人. Five years later (1317), the imperial favour was extended: the three Máo brothers received their augmented honorific names — Zhēnyīng, Miàoyīng, Shényīng — and the three peaks were ordered to be made into observatories: Shèngyòu, Déyòu, Rényòu. The next year, the long-lost altar-jade-seal of transmission re-emerged; the relevant authorities reported it, and by imperial favour the rank of the mountain was elevated. Auspicious lìngzhī 靈芝 sprouted, the spirit-people came in concord; everything that needed restoring among scriptures, registers, and buildings, the Patriarch was now able to bring to perfect completion by his unstinting labour. He also lamented that the previous mountain-chronicle was meagre at the front and missing at the back, and so charged his entered-chamber disciples to assemble materials and form a book, then came to me requesting a preface…” Zhào surveys the contents and praises the comprehensive ordering.
Wú Quánjié’s preface (Tèjìn shàngqīng Xuánjiào dà zōngshī, dated Tàidìng 4, dīngmǎo first month — early 1327): “Reverently I consider that under the Imperial Yuán’s possession of all-under-heaven, [the court] has from the first prized the Pure-and-Quiet Way as its first means of opening… I rejoice that this book’s transmission is of profit to the Way, and that my words of encouragement are not in vain; therefore I have written it.” Signed by Wú Quánjié.
Abstract
Florian C. Reiter, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:911–912 (§3.A.6, Sacred History and Geography), establishes the chronicle’s compositional history. The work was initiated on the encouragement of Wú Quánjié 吳全節 — who had first approached Wáng Dàomèng 王道孟, the forty-fourth Máoshān patriarch — and only on Wáng’s death proceeded to his successor Liú Dàbīn. Wú, as Xuánjiào dà zōngshī, presided over Daoism in the South China region, and saw the chronicle as the reward for the efforts of his predecessors and himself — and especially for Zhāng Liúsūn 張留孫 — to obtain imperial support and special favours for Máoshān. The chronicle took thirteen years to complete: Liú had fallen ill, charged his disciples with collecting material, and added supplement after supplement (e.g., the memorandum on the 1330 jīnlù zhāi held on behalf of the empire, 4.18b–19a). At the end appears a postface written in 1320 by Zhào Mèngfǔ 趙孟頫 (1254–1322) for an illustrated work commissioned by Liú on the Shàngqīng tradition (Shàngqīng chuánzhēn tú 上清傳真圖); Zhào identifies himself there as the author of the biographies that accompanied the portraits of the forty-five patriarchs of Máoshān — Liú presumably included these biographies, if not the portraits, in the Máoshān zhì. The frontmatter accordingly brackets composition 1317 (the second imperial canonisation, after which Liú’s compilation began in earnest) to 1330 (the latest dated supplement).
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Florian C. Reiter, “Maoshan zhi,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.6, 911–912. Florian C. Reiter, Der Perlenbeutel aus den drei Höhlen: Arbeitsmaterialien zum Taoismus der frühen T’ang Zeit (Wiesbaden 1990), exploits the Máoshān zhì extensively. On Yuán-period Máoshān: Edward L. Davis, Society and the Supernatural in Song China (Honolulu 2001).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0316
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.6, 911–912.