Luòyáng qiélán jì 洛陽伽藍記
A Record of the Monasteries of Luò-yáng
written by 楊衒之 (Yáng Xuànzhī, fl. mid-6th c., 撰)
About the work
A 5-juan early-medieval Chinese Buddhist gazetteer of the Northern Wèi 北魏 capital Luòyáng 洛陽, written by the Northern-Wèi / Eastern-Wèi official Yáng Xuànzhī 楊衒之 (also written 羊衒之 or 陽衒之). The work is dated by the author’s preface to Eastern-Wèi Wǔdìng 武定 5 = 547. Yáng was a senior Northern-Wèi official (秘書監 bìshū jiān and 奉朝請; later under Eastern Wèi, 期城郡太守 and 撫軍府司馬). The work was composed during Yáng’s revisit to the abandoned capital of Luòyáng — abandoned in the Yǒngxī 永熙 disorder of 534 when the Wèi capital was forcibly relocated to Yè (modern Héběi). Transmitted in Taishō 51 as T2092.
Abstract
The work surveys the 1300+ Buddhist monasteries of the Northern-Wèi capital Luòyáng — a Buddhist establishment of unparalleled splendour built up over the period from the Yǒngpíng 永平 era (508–512) under Wèi Xuānwǔdì 宣武帝 through the Yǒngxī disaster of 534. The text is structured by city-quarter: juan 1 covers the city centre and the imperial Yǒngníngsì 永寧寺 — at the time the largest and tallest pagoda in the world (a 9-storey wood-and-stone tower 90 zhàng tall, built in 516 and burnt down by lightning in 534, just before the capital was abandoned); juan 2–4 cover the eastern, southern, western, and northern suburbs respectively; juan 5 covers the materials on the Sòng Yún / Huìshēng 宋雲惠生 embassy to Gandhāra and back (518–521).
The work combines:
- Buddhist establishment history — the founders, builders, dedications, and miraculous histories of each major monastery;
- Northern-Wèi political-aristocratic prosopography — many of the monastery-founders were senior aristocrats and the work preserves much detail on their biographies, residences, and political-social networks;
- Cultural-historical ethnography — Luòyáng’s foreign quarters, where Sogdian, Persian, Indian, and Hephthalite traders lived; the imperial ceremonial routes; the famous floating-bridge over the Luò river;
- Literary anecdotes — the work is one of the principal sources for Northern-Wèi capital literary culture, preserving many short narratives, poems, and characteristic anecdotes;
- Sòng Yún / Huìshēng pilgrimage account — juan 5 preserves the extended version of the embassy account whose abridgement constitutes KR6r0120 BěiWèi sēng Huìshēng shǐ xīyù jì.
The work is one of the most important single sources for Northern-Wèi capital culture and for the mid-6th-c. peak of Chinese-Buddhist material splendour — a peak that was largely effaced when the capital was abandoned in 534 and the great wooden monasteries either burned or fell into ruin. It is treated by Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, as one of the principal early-medieval geographical sources for the WèiJìnNánBěicháo period.
The Taishō recension preserves a MíngQīng critical apparatus including the Máo Jìn 毛晉 (晚明) postface, which contextualises the work within the Northern-Wèi cultural-political landscape.
Translations and research
- W. J. F. Jenner, Memories of Loyang: Yang Hsüan-chih and the Lost Capital (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981) — the principal English study, with extensive translation.
- Yi-tung Wang, A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-yang (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984) — full English critical translation.
- 范祥雍, 《洛陽伽藍記校注》 (Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi gǔjí, 1958) — the principal modern Chinese critical edition.
- 周祖謨, 《洛陽伽藍記校釋》 (Běijīng: Zhōnghuá shū-jú, 1963) — alternate critical edition.
- Tsukamoto Zenryū 塚本善隆, Pèi-Wèi fó-jiào shǐ 北魏佛教史 (Kyōto, 1942) — the principal Japanese-language treatment of Northern-Wèi Buddhism, with extensive use of the Qié-lán jì.
- Hugh R. Clark and other Anglophone treatments of medieval Chinese urban history.
Other points of interest
The Yǒngníngsì pagoda, described in juan 1, is one of the most famous lost monuments of pre-modern China. Built in Xīpíng 熙平 1 (516) under empress-dowager Hú 胡 (the patron of the SòngYún / Huìshēng embassy), it stood 90 zhàng (~280 m) tall and was visible from over 100 lǐ. It was struck by lightning in Yǒngxī 永熙 3 (534), shortly before the capital itself fell, and burned for three days. The Qiélán jì’s description is the only extant first-hand witness to the building.