Nányuè zǒngshèng jí 南嶽總勝集
Comprehensive Anthology of the Triumphs of the Southern Marchmount
written by 陳田夫 (Chén Tiánfū / Gēngsǒu 耕叟, fl. mid-12th c., 撰)
About the work
A 3-juan Southern-Sòng comprehensive gazetteer of the Southern Marchmount Mount Héng 衡山 in modern Húnán — the Nányuè 南嶽 of the canonical Five Peaks — composed by the Southern-Sòng layman Chén Tiánfū 陳田夫 (字 Gēngsǒu 耕叟). Lifedates not transmitted; floruit Southern Sòng. The work was largely composed at Nányuè during a reclusive period of the author’s life, and incorporates older lost gazetteers as primary sources. The dating bracket is 1163 – 1180 — the late-Shàoxīng / early-Chúnxī period when the principal Southern-Sòng gazetteer compositions were undertaken at Mount Héng.
The Qīng-period Tāng Zhòngmiǎn 唐仲冕 Rénxū (壬戌 = 1802) postscript notes that the Sòng-print recension is the principal authority and that earlier gazetteers (the Sòng Jūshì 宋居士’s Héngshān jì 衡山記 listed in the Suí jīngjí zhì; Xú Língqī 徐靈期’s Nányuè jì 南嶽記 cited in the Tàipíng yùlǎn; Lú Hóng 盧鴻 and Qián Jǐngkǎn 錢景衎’s gazetteers cited in the Sòng yìwén zhì) are all lost — the present work is therefore the principal surviving gazetteer of the mountain.
Transmitted in Taishō 51 as T2097.
Abstract
The work covers Mount Héng in three juan:
- Juan 1: The mountain’s overall geography, its 72 peaks (the canonical count), and the principal water-features.
- Juan 2: The principal Buddhist monasteries (notably the Fúyánsì 福嚴寺, founded ca. 568 by Huìsī 慧思 — the second Tiāntái patriarch — and the Nányuèsì 南嶽寺) and Daoist establishments. The mountain is also the canonical home of the Nányuè branch of the Chán school (Nányuè Huáiràng 南嶽懷讓 — the dharma-grandfather of Línjì); the gazetteer treats the foundational Chán sites alongside the older Buddhist establishments.
- Juan 3: Stelae-inscriptions, dedicatory writings, and the editorial-historical essays — including substantial transcriptions of Tang and Sòng epigraphy that are otherwise lost.
The work is the principal Southern-Sòng documentary witness to Mount Héng’s religious establishment. Its incorporation into the Buddhist canon (Taishō 51) reflects its dominant Buddhist content, but the Daoist materials are equally substantial and the work is best characterised as an ecumenical mountain gazetteer in the mid-Sòng style.
Translations and research
- The work is treated in standard surveys of Sòng Buddhist topography (Suzuki Tetsuo 鈴木哲雄, Tang-Sòng Chán-zōng dì-lǐ kǎo).
- 何明棟, 南嶽總勝集校點 — modern Chinese critical edition.
- The work is also discussed in the broader Tang-Sòng sacred-mountain scholarship (James Robson, Power of Place, 2009 — though Robson focuses on the earlier history).
Other points of interest
James Robson’s Power of Place: The Religious Landscape of the Southern Sacred Peak (Nanyue 南嶽) in Medieval China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Asia Center, 2009) is the principal modern English-language study of Mount Héng’s religious landscape. Robson uses the Nányuè zǒngshèng jí extensively as the central documentary source for the Sòng state of the mountain.