Méixiānguàn jì 梅仙觀記
Record of the Méi-xiān Belvedere by 楊智遠 (編)
About the work
A single-juǎn shrine-gazetteer for the Méixiānguàn 梅仙觀, the cult-site at Nánqílǐ 南岐里 in Xuānfēng township 宣風郷, Fēngchéng 豐城 county (Jiāngxī 江西), dedicated to the Western-Hàn official-turned-immortal 梅福 (Méi Fú, zì Zǐzhēn 子真). The work was compiled by 楊智遠 (Yáng Zhìyuǎn), a resident Daoist of the affiliated Xiāntánguàn 仙壇觀. It assembles in one place the Hànshū biographical sources, the surviving Sòng imperial-investiture documents (Yuánfēng 5 / 1082 and Shàoxīng 2 / 1132), Táng and Sòng commemorative steles, and SòngYuán poems on the cult.
Abstract
The work is organised in four sections:
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Méixiān shìshí 梅仙事實 (“The Facts about the Méi Immortal”). Signed “Xiāntánguàn dàoshì Yáng Zhìyuǎn biān” 仙壇觀道士楊智遠編 (“compiled by Yáng Zhìyuǎn, Daoist of the Xiāntánguàn”). This narrates Méi Fú’s career: a Western Hàn official from Shòuchūn 壽春 (Jiǔjiāng commandery), he served as Nánchāngxiànwèi 南昌縣尉 (commandant of Nánchāng) under Emperor Chéng. Distressed by the rising power of the Wángshì 王氏 imperial in-laws (Wáng Fèng 王鳳 in particular) and the natural disasters that he read as portents of dynastic decline, he submitted a major memorial — quoted at length in the text — invoking the historical exemplars of Jīzǐ 箕子 and Shūsūn Tōng 叔孫通, urging the emperor to “follow the methods of Gāozǔ” and warning that “if scholars are valued, the state is heavy; if they are lost, it is light” (士者國之重器). The memorial was disregarded. With the rise of Wáng Mǎng 王莽, Méi abandoned his family and disappeared south, becoming, by tradition, a gatekeeper at Wúshì 吳市 and ultimately attaining transcendence; the Méixiānshān 梅仙山 at Fēngchéng preserves the remains of his hermitage and alchemical workshop.
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Bēiwén 碑文 (“Stele Inscriptions”). The principal stele is the Méi xiānshēng bēi 梅先生碑 by the late-Táng poet 羅隱 (Luó Yǐn) — preserved in his collected works as a prose lament for the failure of the Hàn court to heed Méi’s counsel. Yáng has further appended the Shū Méi xiānshēng bēi yīn 書梅先生碑陰 (“On the Reverse of Master Méi’s Stele”) by Xiāo Shānmíng 蕭山明 (hào Dàshān 大山), dated Xiánchún liùnián suì zài gēngwǔ liùyuè shuò 咸淳六年嵗在庚午六月朔 (the first day of the sixth month, gēngwǔ year, sixth year of Xiánchún = 1270 CE), and the Shū Méi xiānshēng bēi hòu 書梅先生碑後 by Xiāo Tàilái 蕭泰來 (hào Xiǎoshān 小山). The Xiánchún date establishes the firm terminus a quo for the present compilation.
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Sòng chìgào 宋勑誥 (“Sòng Imperial Decrees”). Yáng has transcribed the chancellery paper-trail by which the cult was officially recognised: a Yuánfēng 5 (1082) Department of State Affairs memorial reporting that the local prefecture has verified Méi Fú’s remains and the antiquity of the shrine, and that “in time of drought or flood the local people pray for relief and it always responds” (毎遇水旱人民祈禱皆有感應), recommending an imperial title; the Tàichángsì concurrence; the imperial reply (recorded as “Tèfēng Shòuchūn zhēnrén” 特封壽春真人, “specially enfeoffed as Perfected of Shòuchūn”) of Yuánfēng 5 / ninth month; and the subsequent Shàoxīng 2 (1132) confirmation under the Southern Sòng.
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Poems and miscellaneous notices completing the volume.
The work is one of the most fully-documented SòngYuán Daoist shrine-gazetteers and is unique within the jìzhuàn 記傳 section of the Daozang for the breadth of administrative and literary material that the compiler has assembled. Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 909, Vincent Goossaert) date it to circa 1296 — the late thirteenth century — based on the Xiánchún 6 stele appendix and the subsequent absence of any datable item later than the early Yuán; the absence of Yuán imperial documents may suggest a date close to the dynastic transition (1276–1300).
Translations and research
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Vol. 2: 909 (DZ 600, Vincent Goossaert).
- Wang Yongping 王永平. “Méi Fú yǔ Méi-xiān chóng-bài de qǐ-yuán” 梅福與梅仙崇拜的起源. Zōng-jiào-xué yán-jiū 宗教學研究 2007 (3) — on the Han origins of the cult subsequently codified in this gazetteer.
- Hàn-shū 漢書, j. 67 (Yáng Hú-zhū Méi Yún zhuàn 楊胡朱梅雲傳) — primary source for Méi Fú’s career and memorials, much of which Yáng Zhì-yuǎn excerpts.
Other points of interest
The text is one of the few Daozang shrine-gazetteers to preserve a complete Sòng investiture dossier (memorial, ministerial concurrences, and imperial reply with date) for a regional cult, and is therefore an important documentary witness to the bureaucratic mechanics of Sòng-period state recognition of Daoist sanctuaries. The Méixiān shrine itself, the text notes, had at one point been seized by Buddhist clergy and converted to a Guānyīn 觀音 chapel (“移入開山堂安奉佛像改名觀音院”), although local people had continued to refer to it by its original name; the Sòng investiture restored its Daoist identity.