Abstract
Pettit’s essay examines an inscription composed in 519 by early medieval literatus Tao Hongjing upon completion of the Scarlet Solarity Lodge on Mount Mao. While providing careful analysis of the poetic and prose sections of the inscription, and discussing Tao’s combined Buddhist and Daoist practices, Pettit emphasizes the materiality of the stele on which this text was inscribed, the esoteric topography that pervades the medieval imaginary, and the ritual contexts alluded to in the poem.
Keywords: stele inscriptions, Tao Hongjing, Mount Mao, medieval poetry
The “Stele Inscription for the Altar at the Old Lodge of Senior Administrator Xu” (Xu changshi jiuguan tan bei 許長史舊館壇碑, hereafter “Xu Mi Stele”) is a record of Tao Hongjing’s 陶弘景 (456–536) largest construction project, the Scarlet Solarity Lodge (Zhuyang guan 朱陽館). Written in 519 CE, the “Xu Mi Stele” contains a short passage describing a reliquary stupa Tao built. This short passage is known to historians as the only extant text in which Tao mentions his Buddhist program at Mount Mao. The rest of the inscription, which includes a history of this sacred site and a long ritual hymn, remains largely unstudied and unknown.
One key theme of the inscription is the idea that the sacred mountains can be a locus for profound spiritual transformation. More specifically, the Scarlet Solarity Lodge, built at a site where Mount Mao’s earlier patriarchs once practiced, made liberation from the human world not only possible, but seemingly effortless. The poet describes an individual whose mind had become “cleansed” (qing 清) and underwent a “true awakening” (zhengjue 正覺). This, in turn, produced a supernatural state of consciousness whereby the subject of the hymn flew throughout the cosmos and brushed past rainbows:
飛行欻恍 To take a flying course so sudden and swift,
捫景帶虹 Brushing past phosphors and around rainbows.
振苦排鄣 And shakes off suffering and dispenses with obstructions,
還明返聰 To bring back illumination and restoring sapience.
Since this poem lacks pronouns and other grammatical markers, the identity of the individual experiencing this transformation is not clear.