Sìmíng dòngtiān Dānshān túyǒng jí 四明洞天丹山圖詠集
Collected Illustrations and Verses on Mt. Dān of the Sì-míng Grotto-Heaven by 曾堅 (撰)
About the work
A single-juǎn anthology of poetry and prose on Mt. Sìmíng 四明山 — the Dānshān chìshuǐ dòngtiān 丹山赤水洞天, the ninth of the thirty-six grotto-heavens — in the Yúyáo 餘姚 region of coastal Zhèjiāng (now part of Níngbō prefecture). The work was assembled by 曾堅 (Zēng Jiān, zì Zǐbái 子白, hào Cānghǎi yìlì 滄海逸吏), a YuánMíng transition official from Línchuān 臨川, around two ritual tú 圖 (illustrations) of the Yuánjiànguàn 元建觀 and Tángqiānguàn 唐遷觀 of the cult-complex. The introduction is dated Zhìzhèng 21 / 10 / 1 (= 1361 CE) and the appended Shítián shānfáng shīxù 石田山房詩序 is dated Zhìzhèng 22 / 3 (= 1362), the latter providing a terminus ante quem for the assembled volume.
Abstract
The preface (signed “Cānghǎi yìlì Línchuān Zēng Jiān zhuàn” 滄海逸吏臨川曽堅撰) frames the topography of Mt. Sìmíng: it lies in the Eastern Sea and contains four caves admitting sky-light “such that the sky and clouds in clear weather, viewed from below, resemble windows” (天宇澄霽望之一如戸牗) — whence local people call it the Shíchuāng 石窗 (“stone-windows”) and the mountain takes its name (Sìmíng = “four-clear”). The Daoist tradition identifies it as Mù Xuánxū 木玄虛’s ninth of the thirty-six grotto-heavens, designated Dānshān chìshuǐ 丹山赤水 (“Cinnabar Mountain, Crimson Waters”). It is connected to Mt. Dàlán 大蘭山 and measures 380 lǐ in circumference with 280 peaks rising to 2,100 zhàng; mists permanently cover a 20-lǐ strip dividing the southern (Yúnnán 雲南) and northern (Yúnběi 雲北) slopes.
The preface recounts the cult’s fasti: in the Later Han, Liú Gāng 劉綱 (magistrate of Shàngyú 上虞) and his wife Fán Yúnqiào 樊雲翹 retired to the Chányuándòng 潺湲洞 here, received Daoist methods from the immortal Báijūn 白君, and attained transcendence together — Liú lifted off from a great cedar at the summit and Fán followed; their abandoned slippers turned into a couchant tiger, and Mt. Shēngxiān 昇仙山 (“ascent of immortals”) was named in their memory. Under the Chén dynasty Yǒngdìng era (557–559) imperial decree established the Yuánjiànguàn 元建觀 around the original shrine. In Táng Tiānbǎo 3 (744), an imperial envoy found the access too dangerous and ordered the Daoist Cuī Xián 崔銜 and the recluse Lǐ Jiàn 李建 to relocate the abbey to the Chányuándòng outlet, now styled Báishuǐgōng 白水宫 (the Tángqiānguàn).
Northern Sòng patronage culminated in Huīzōng’s Zhènghé 6 (1116) edict enlarging the abbey, building the Yùhuángdiàn 玉皇殿, inscribing the gate-tablet Dānshān chìshuǐ dòngtiān, ennobling Liú Gāng as Shēngxuán míngyì zhēnjūn 昇玄明義真君 and Fánshì as Shēngzhēn miàohuà yuánjūn 昇真妙化元君, and conferring the title Dānlínláng 丹林郎 on Wú Zhēnyáng 吳真陽 (Hùnpǔzǐ 混朴子), the resident Daoist from the Lónghǔshān 龍虎山 Sānhuáyuàn 三華院 lineage and disciple of Xūjìng tiānshī Zhāng [Jìxiān] 虛靜天師張[繼先]. Under Gāozōng of the Southern Sòng, the chancellor Zhāng Wèigōng 張魏公 (Zhāng Jùn 張浚) further memorialised Hùnpǔzǐ for zhēnrén status. In Lǐzōng’s Jiāxī 1 (1237), state ritual at the Kuàijī Lóngruìgōng (see KR5b0309) deposited a jīnlóng yùjiǎn 金龍玉簡 at the Sìmíng site. At the time of Zēng’s writing (1361) the abbacy was held by Máo Yǒngzhēn 毛永貞 of the same Sānhuáyuàn lineage.
The cult-site’s distinctive local fauna and flora — the Qīnglíngshù 青櫺樹 with sweet but impossible-to-split fruit, the Jūhóu 鞠猴 monkey — are named, with reference to the Táng Xiántōng era recluse Xiè Yíchén 謝遺塵, and to the famous interchange-of-poems between Lù Guīméng 陸龜蒙 and Pí Rìxiū 皮日休 (each in nine poems) on the place, transcribed in the Sòng-period Lù Yóu’s 陸游 records and reproduced here.
The work as transmitted in the Daozang contains Zēng’s preface, the textual descriptions, and a poetic anthology drawn from Lù Guīméng, Pí Rìxiū, and later visitors; the original illustrations from which the work derives its title (tú 圖) are no longer present. Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 3: 1227, Vincent Goossaert) treat the work as a late-Yuán literary monument to the Sìmíng cult.
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. 3: 1227 (DZ 605, Vincent Goossaert).
- Bossler, Beverly. Powerful Relations: Kinship, Status, and the State in Sung China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 1998 — for the broader context of Sòng official patronage of regional Daoist cults including Sì-míng.
- Wú Zhēn-yáng (Hùn-pǔ-zǐ) biographical notice in Bái Yún-jì 白雲霽, Dào-zàng mù-lù xiáng-zhù 道藏目錄詳註.
Other points of interest
The work belongs to a distinctive late-Yuán sub-genre of poetic-cum-pictorial monographs on Daoist sacred sites that combined the older shānzhì with the tíhuàshī 題畫詩 tradition. It also has independent value as a witness to the late-Tang reception of the Sìmíng cult through the Lù Guīméng / Pí Rìxiū poetic exchange, otherwise known only through Lù Yóu’s lost notes.