Xīyuè Huáshān zhì 西嶽華山誌
Monograph on the Western Peak (Huáshān)
with preface by 劉大用 (序, 1183); compilation attributed in the catalog meta to 王處一 — but see Abstract for the discrepancy
About the work
A one-juan Jīn-period mountain-monograph on Huáshān 華山 — one of the Five Sacred Peaks (五嶽) and the Xīyuè 西嶽 of the title — preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0307 / CT 307 = TC 307), 洞真部 記傳類. The author signs himself only as the “Recluse of Lotus Peak” (Liánfēng yǐnzhě 蓮峯隱者), a hào taken from one of Huáshān’s central summits. The work compiles older mountain-monographs (the Tang-period Huáshān jì 華山記 and a now-lost Huázhōu tújīng 華州圖經 quoted in the text), excerpts from the Lièxiān zhuàn 列仙傳 attributed to Liú Xiàng 劉向, and a wide range of anecdotes on Huáshān’s resident immortals and their cult. According to Liú Dàyòng’s preface, the original comprised “over seventy piān 篇 concerning the peaks, caverns, monasteries, natural products, relics, immortals, and so on, of Huáshān” — a description that does not match the present version, which is therefore probably incomplete. The text concludes with two prefaces by Táng Xuánzōng 玄宗 (r. 712–756), the second being only the first section of a stele (the complete text of which is preserved as Xīyuè Tàihuáshān bēi xù 西嶽太華山碑序 in Quán Táng wén 全唐文 41).
Prefaces
Liú Dàyòng’s preface (signed 泥陽劉大用器之, dated Dàdìng 大定 guǐmǎo twelfth month, rénshēn day = 1183): “In all that pertains to the men of antiquity who worked the divine medicines, they had perforce to enter the famous mountains and the fúdì 福地 places of grace; never within the small mountains. Why? The small mountains have no upright zhèngshén 正神 ruling over them; they are mostly the seat of wood-and-stone essences and millennium-aged corruptors, beings filled with deviant qì 氣 who do not think to do good for men. Hence I respectfully consult the Shānjīng 山經, which says: ‘Those upon which one may concentrate one’s thought and refine the divine medicines are: Huáshān 華山, Tàishān 泰山, Huòshān 霍山, Héngshān 恆山, Sōngshān 嵩山. The rest are scattered through the central plain or beyond the Five Defences of the lords; among the so-called famous mountains there are hundreds, but they are not all to be cited; these all have a zhèngshén in them, or are inhabited by Earth-bound immortals, and on them grow the zhī 芝 fungi. If one possessing the Way ascends them, the mountain-spirit will assist him to good fortune; the medicines will surely be perfected.’ My own home district of Jīnchéng 金城 stretches a thousand miles, controlling the Three Rivers, and there reigns the brilliant peak Tàihuá 太華 — a mountain that holds the office of the Three Dukes, opposing the Four Peaks, before which Zhōngnán 終南 and Tàibái 太白 step back and hold their breath, against which Shǒuyáng 首陽 and Wángwū 王屋 dare not contend in eminence…” (Liú then sets forth the cosmological station of Huáshān: it is Tàisù zhī yuánjīng 太素之元精, of golden virtue, in the western duì 兌 quarter; the stage of Heaven’s xiāngshǒu 仙手 and the jízhēn 極真 designation among the Ten Great Cavern-Heavens; the eastern of the Eighteen Water-Palaces — and so on. He then introduces “my friend Lord Wáng Zǐyuān” 王公子淵, who, having married, withdrew into Huáshān to refine the Golden Liquor; finding the old records meagre, he amplified the Huáshān jì with materials from the Zhōujùn tújīng 州郡圖經 and from Liú Xiàng’s Lièxiān zhuàn, distributing the lemmata in proper order; the result, in over seventy chapters, was committed to the wood-cutters; on its completion he asked Liú for a preface — Liú demurred, then yielded and wrote the present introduction.) Signed “Dàdìng guǐmǎo, twelfth month, rénshēn; Níyáng Liú Dàyòng Qìzhī, prefaced.”
Abstract
Florian C. Reiter, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:911 (§3.A.6, Sacred History and Geography), notes a complication. The author sojourned on the Lotus Peak (Liánfēng 蓮峯), one of Huáshān’s central summits — whence his hào “Recluse of the Lotus Peak.” The Quánzhēn 全真 Daoist master and author of [[KR5a1156|DZ 1152 Yúngāng jí]] Yúngāng jí 雲光集, Wáng Chǔyī 王處一 (1142–1217), lived during the same period under the Jīn 金 dynasty — but his well-documented biography shows that he had no connection with the Lotus Peak. The catalog meta’s author-attribution to Wáng Chǔyī is therefore very probably erroneous; the present work is by an otherwise-unknown Quánzhēn or proto-Quánzhēn master of Huáshān’s Lotus Peak, and not by Wáng Chǔyī. The 1183 preface by Liú Dàyòng 劉大用 (Qìzhī 器之, of Níyáng 泥陽) is the only firm date. The frontmatter brackets composition immediately before the preface (1180–1183). For the broader context, see also TC entries on Huáshān and Chén Tuán.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Florian C. Reiter, “Xiyue Huashan zhi,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.6, 911. On Quánzhēn–Huá-shān relations: Pierre Marsone, Wang Chongyang et la fondation du Quanzhen (Paris 2010); Vincent Goossaert, La création du taoïsme moderne (Paris: EPHE dissertation, 1997).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0319
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.6, 911.