Every Rock a Universe

The Yellow Mountains (Huang shan) of China’s Anhui Province have been famous for centuries as a place of scenic beauty and inspiration for poets, painters, and travelers. As early as the Tang Dynasty (618­–906), visitors were climbing at considerable risk its austere rocky peaks with fantastic pine trees, and the area remains a hugely popular tourist destination today.

A “golden age” of Yellow Mountains travel came in the 17th century, especially after the traumatic Manchu invasion of China in 1644 led to the overthrow of the Ming dynasty. The mountains subsequently became an important symbol for loyalists protesting the new Qing dynasty and hoping for a reaffirmation of native governance and ideals. Gazing at an album of paintings by Jiang Zhu of Yellow Mountain scenes, his fellow poet and artist Wang Hongdu (1646­–1721/1722) wrote:

Open these paintings—not a single place

                    is not a paradise!

From this day on, I will be dreaming

                     of wandering with the immortals.

Wang was not content merely to look at paintings, however. He dedicated himself to traveling to each and every one of the “36 Peaks” as well as the “36 Lesser Peaks” of the Yellow Mountains, and recording his impressions. Yet his resulting masterpiece of Chinese travel writing, the Huangshan lingyao lu (A Record of Comprehending the Essentials of the Yellow Mountains), was not printed until 1775 and has since remained obscure and available only in Chinese.

In the present book, Professor Jonathan Chaves of The George Washington University presents the first complete translation of Wang’s work  into a Western language, with extensive annotations. Wang’s newly rediscovered poetry is also presented, showing him to be one of the most accomplished and expressive poets of his day.

Introductory essays explore the history of scholarly and religious pilgrimage to the area, and the role of the Yellow Mountains in the great Neo-Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist revivals of the early Qing period, that is, as the center of a yearned-for spiritual and cultural renaissance.